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Rolled Plaice or Sole

Steamed rolled plaice or sole served with a creamy fish stock sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Rolled Plaice or Sole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Fillet and skin the plaice.

  2. Sprinkle each fillet with salt and lemon juice.

  3. Roll up the fillets with the skinned side inside.

  4. Place the rolled fillets in a greased basin.

  5. Cover the basin with greased paper.

  6. Steam for 15 minutes.

Make the stock

  1. Simmer the fish bones with the water for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the stock.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Add flour to the melted butter.

  3. Gradually stir in the milk until boiling.

  4. Add a little fish stock to thicken the sauce.

  5. Add the liquid from the basin to the sauce.

  6. Boil the sauce.

  7. Season the sauce with salt and lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Dish up the fillets.

  2. Pour the sauce over 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Plaice
Forms the main body of the dish and gives the flesh that rolls and cooks through.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries the flour, adding richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter and milk into a smooth, coating sauce.
Milk
Forms the body of the white sauce, giving it creaminess and a mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the milk until boiling. Adding milk slowly to the butter and flour paste lets starch granules disperse evenly, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth sauce as it thickens.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk. 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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