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Grenadier De Fil Et De Sole-sole with Forcemeat and Gherkins

A sole fillet stuffed with gherkins, truffles, and forcemeat, baked in a fish gravy and served with sliced gherkins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Grenadier De Fil Et De Sole-sole with Forcemeat and Gherkins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Split the sole downwards and remove the bone.

  2. Lard the inside with strips of gherkins and truffles.

  3. Make the forcemeat by mixing dressed fish, bread crumbs, hard-boiled egg yolk, boiled celery root, anchovy, parsley, chervil, fat bacon or butter, raw egg, pepper, and salt.

  4. Cover one half of the sole with forcemeat and place the other half on top.

  5. Fasten the two halves together with four skewers.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake with 4 tablespoons of weak meat or fish gravy.

  2. Keep the fish hot while warming the gravy with caper vinegar and gherkin liquor.

  3. Serve with sliced gherkins.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Meat + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fine sole
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the forcemeat and larding inside.
Bread crumbs
Bind the forcemeat and help it hold together as it cooks.
Raw egg
Binds the forcemeat so it sets firm when heated.
Hard-boiled egg yolk
Adds richness and a smooth, soft texture to the forcemeat.
Anchovy
Adds a salty, savoury depth to the forcemeat.
Weak meat or fish gravy
Supplies moisture so the fish does not dry out while baking.

The step that matters

Keep the fish hot while warming the gravy. Fish is delicate and overcooks quickly, so it should be held warm rather than reheated hard. Gently warming the gravy and sauce keeps the fillet moist and prevents the sauce from breaking or turning greasy.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, meat, fish, bread, egg, anchovy, parsley):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, meat, fish, bread, egg, anchovy, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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