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Sole Au Gratin a l’Anglaise

A sole fillet baked with parsley, shallot, mushrooms, lemon, Italian sauce, and browned 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 14,037 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sole Au Gratin a l’Anglaise

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

  2. Dry the sole well; chop the parsley, shallot, and mushrooms, and mix them together.

Assemble

  1. Butter a dish and sprinkle half of the chopped mushrooms, parsley, and shallot on the dish.

  2. Lay the sole on this seasoning and sprinkle the rest of the mixture over the fish.

  3. Squeeze lemon juice over the fish, season with salt and pepper, and shake browned breadcrumbs on top.

  4. Dot the fish with small pieces of butter.

Bake and serve

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

  2. Transfer the fish to a clean dish, warm the sauce, and pour it around the fish.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,047 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned 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 into tender flakes under the topping.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savoury flavour as they release liquid while baking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the topping brown and keeps the fish moist.
Browned breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on top of the fish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Dry the sole well. Excess surface moisture steams the fish instead of letting the seasonings and breadcrumbs sit on it, and it dilutes the flavour of the dish.

“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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