Skip to main content
Main

Boiled Sole

A sole fish boiled in veal stock, seasoned with salt and vinegar, served with plain melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Boiled Sole

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scale, trim, and clean the sole, leaving the brown skin on.

  2. Sprinkle salt and vinegar over the fish and let it sit for 30 minutes.

Poach and serve

  1. Place the sole in a large saucepan and cover it with veal stock.

  2. Bring to a boil, then simmer until tender, checking with a fork.

  3. Lift the fish out and let it drain.

  4. Serve on a folded napkin with plain melted butter.

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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Veal + fishtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Vinegar + fishtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,036 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Sole
Forms the main flesh, which turns firm and flaky as it cooks in the stock.
Veal stock
Gently poaches the fish and adds savory body to the butter sauce.
Plain melted butter
Adds richness and a smooth fat that complements the mild, delicate fish.
Vinegar
Its acidity lightly firms the flesh and brightens the mild flavor of the fish.

The step that matters

Simmering until tender. Boiling vigorously toughens and breaks up delicate fish proteins, so the stock should only simmer gently while the fish is checked with a fork.

“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.

You might also like

Fried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesScalloped CodScalloped Cod69 recipesBroiled FishBroiled Fish68 recipes