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Sole Au Gratin

Sole au Gratin is a baked sole fillet topped with parsley, shallot, mushrooms, breadcrumbs, and seasoned with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Sole Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Mix the parsley, shallot, and mushrooms on a plate.

  3. Rub the stale bread through a wire sieve to make breadcrumbs.

  4. Brown the breadcrumbs in the oven.

  5. Wash the soles and dry them with a cloth.

  6. Cut off the outside fins and nick the skin across the head and tail.

  7. Loosen the skin with your finger and remove it from both sides.

Assemble and bake

  1. Grease a baking tin and sprinkle half of the chopped mushroom mixture in it.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and a few drops of lemon juice.

  3. Nick the soles in two or three places and place them in the tin, nicked side up.

  4. Top the soles with the remaining mushroom mixture.

  5. Season again with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  6. Sprinkle breadcrumbs over the tops.

  7. Bake in the oven until cooked through.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Soles
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through to become tender and flaky.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savory flavor as they release juices while baking beneath the fish.
Stale bread
Becomes breadcrumbs that brown on top, adding a crisp, golden crust.
Shallot
Adds a mild, aromatic sweetness that softens and blends into the mushroom layer.

The step that matters

Brown the breadcrumbs in the oven. Breadcrumbs can burn quickly in a hot oven, while too little time leaves them pale and soft. Watching them closely gives an even golden colour and a crisp texture for the topping.

“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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