Skip to main content
Main

Fried Soles

A fish dish where soles are soaked in vinegar, coated with egg and breadcrumbs, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Soles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Scrape and wipe the soles clean.

  2. Soak the fish in vinegar for at least 1 hour or overnight to enhance flavor.

  3. Run a knife between the flesh and backbone to prevent redness when cut.

  4. Dry the soles on a cloth.

Coat the fish

  1. Beat the egg yolk with a little egg white.

  2. Dip each sole in the egg on both sides and let excess drip off.

  3. Mix breadcrumbs, flour, salt, and pepper on a plate.

  4. Coat each sole in the breadcrumb mixture on both sides.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat butter in a pan and fry the soles until golden brown on both sides.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Soles
Form the main body of the dish, cooking to a flaky, tender texture.
Egg yolk
Acts as a binder so the breadcrumb coating adheres to the fish.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried in butter.
Flour
Dries the fish surface and helps the egg and crumbs stick evenly.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds browning and rich flavor.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown on both sides. Breadcrumbs brown through the Maillard reaction at frying heat, but the fish cooks quickly. Fry over steady heat so the coating browns before the flesh dries out.

“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.

More fried sole recipes

Fillets 20 See all 66 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes