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Sole a LA Rouennaise

A French dish of sole fillets rolled with lobster stuffing and topped with a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon sole and sauce share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 5 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sole a LA Rouennaise

serves 4

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stuffing

  1. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a small saucepan.

  2. Stir in 2 teaspoons of flour, add 2 tablespoons of milk, and bring to a boil.

  3. Season with pepper, salt, and lemon juice, then add chopped lobster.

  4. Cool the stuffing on a plate, then divide into four parts.

Roll and bake the fillets

  1. Place a portion on the end of each fillet and roll up.

  2. Place the rolls on a greased baking tin, cover with greased paper, and bake for 15 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, melt 1 oz of butter in a pan.

  2. Stir in 1 oz of flour, then gradually add fish stock and 2 cups of milk.

  3. Bring to a boil, then add parsley, pepper, salt, and the egg yolk.

  4. Thicken the sauce, pour over the fillets, and serve.

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. Lemon sole + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely 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

Lemon sole
Forms the delicate fish base that is rolled around the lobster stuffing.
Lobster
Provides the rich, savoury filling that flavours the rolled fillets.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour in both the stuffing and the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the stuffing and the sauce by forming a roux with the butter.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that thickens with flour into the stuffing and sauce.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce, giving it a smoother, richer body.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce. Once the egg yolk is added, the sauce must be heated gently and not allowed to boil, or the yolk can scramble and the sauce will curdle and lose its smooth texture.

“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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