Name: Boiled Sole Filleted
Ingredients: 2 sole fillets; ½ cup water (from boiling bones and fins); ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ½ tablespoon chopped parsley; 2 green pickled gherkins; 2 rounds of skin from a capsicum; 2 rounds of skin from a pickled walnut

Why it works: Capsicum and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,113 recipes. Both carry 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine, which smells roasted, nutty. The science ↓

Boiled Sole Filleted

Ingredients

2 sole fillets
½ cup water (from boiling bones and fins)
½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
½ tablespoon chopped parsley
2 green pickled gherkins
2 rounds of skin from a capsicum
2 rounds of skin from a pickled walnut

Directions

Prepare the sauce

Boil the bones and fins in water to create a thick sauce.
Thicken the boiling water to create a sauce and pour it over the fillets.

Assemble and serve

Remove the fillets from the sole and roll them up.
Place the rolled fillets in a vegetable dish.
Sprinkle chopped parsley over the fish and sauce.
Cut gherkins, capsicum skin, and walnut skin into small rounds and place one on top of each fillet.

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.

Capsicum + walnuttop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,113 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).
Parsley + walnuttop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together865 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + capsicumtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,094 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sole fillets: Provide the delicate white flesh that is gently poached and rolled.
Water from boiling bones and fins: Carries the flavour from the bones and fins and forms the base of the sauce.
Pickled gherkins: Add sharp acidity that cuts through the rich, mild fish and sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the boiling water into a sauce. The liquid must be reduced or thickened enough to coat the fillets; if it stays thin it will run off and leave the fish dry-tasting and watery.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (capsicum, walnut):

Cuminfits better
Corianderfits better
Celeryfits better
Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against capsicum, walnut. 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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Boiled Sole Filleted