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Soles Au Plat

A sole fish baked in clarified butter with anchovy essence, wine, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Soles Au Plat

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Clarify the butter and pour it into a serving dish.

  2. Add salt, cayenne, essence of anchovies, and wine or sherry.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the cleaned soles in the dish and cover them with a thick layer of bread-crumbs.

  2. Moisten the bread-crumbs with clarified butter.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 15 minutes.

  4. For added flavor, layer shrimps between the soles and mix lemon juice with the sauce.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Clarified butter moistens the crumbs so they brown evenly and carries richness into the fish.
Dry white wine or sherry
Adds acidity and aroma that sharpen the sauce and balance the richness of the butter.
Soles
The fish forms the main body of the dish and cooks gently in the buttery wine liquid.
Bread-crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping that holds moisture in the fish beneath.
Essence of anchovies
Adds a savory, salty depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Moistening the bread-crumbs with clarified butter. Clarified butter has its milk solids removed, so it browns crumbs evenly without burning. Crumbs left dry may toast unevenly or stay pale, and the topping needs enough fat to crisp in the oven.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, white wine, bread, lemon, shrimp):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, white wine, bread, lemon, shrimp. 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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