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Sole Au Gratin

Baked sole topped with parsley, shallot, mushrooms, breadcrumbs, and butter, finished with lemon and glaze.

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 ↓

Sole Au Gratin

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 the sole

  1. Skin the sole, cut off the fins, and nick it on both sides.

  2. Dry the sole well.

Assemble

  1. Chop the parsley, shallot, and mushrooms, and mix them together.

  2. Butter a dish and sprinkle half of the chopped mixture on the bottom.

  3. Lay the sole on top and sprinkle the remaining mixture over the fish.

  4. Squeeze lemon juice over the fish and season with salt and pepper.

  5. Shake browned bread crumbs over the fish.

  6. Dot the fish with small pieces of butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 10 minutes.

  2. Remove the fish to a clean dish, melt the glaze, and pour it around as 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. 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. Lemon + peppertop 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

Sole
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking up flaky and tender in the oven.
Mushrooms
Release moisture as they cook, adding savory flavor and softness to the topping.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bread crumbs and fish brown gently.
Browned bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that contrasts with the soft fish.
Glaze
Melts into a savory sauce that is poured around the fish when serving.

The step that matters

Dry the sole well. Excess surface moisture steams the fish instead of letting the bread crumb topping brown, and it dilutes the sauce around the fish.

“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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