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Soles Au Plat

Sole fillets baked with clarified butter, anchovy essence, wine, and 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 cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Soles Au Plat

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. Clarify the butter and pour it into a serving dish.

  2. Add salt, cayenne, essence of anchovies, and wine or sherry.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the cleaned soles in the dish and cover them with a thick layer of bread-crumbs.

  2. Moisten the bread-crumbs with clarified butter.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 minutes.

  4. For added flavor, layer shrimps between the soles and mix lemon juice with the 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Clarified butter coats the crumbs and adds richness and golden browning in the oven.
Soles
The fish is the main component, cooking gently in the wine and butter sauce.
Bread-crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust over the fish that holds in moisture.
Dry white wine or sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the sauce that the fish cooks in.
Essence of anchovies
Adds a salty, savory depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Moisten the bread-crumbs with clarified butter. Clarified butter is pure fat with the milk solids removed, so it browns without burning and crisps the crumbs. Crumbs left dry will brown unevenly and may scorch before the fish is cooked.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, white wine, bread, lemon, shrimp):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, white wine, bread, lemon, shrimp. 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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