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Baked Sole

Baked sole served with boiled potatoes, shrimp, capers, lemon, white sauce, parsley, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Baked Sole

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a sharp oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Clean and trim the sole.

  2. Butter a baking dish and lay the fish in it.

  3. Sprinkle the fish with salt, pepper, cayenne, and lemon juice.

  4. Shell and chop the shrimps, then sprinkle them over the sole.

  5. Chop the capers and sprinkle them over the shrimps.

  6. Slice the potatoes and completely cover the fish with them.

  7. Dot with a few bits of butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the dish in a baking tin with a little boiling water.

  2. Bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) for 10 minutes.

  3. Remove from the oven, pour over the white sauce, and sprinkle with chopped parsley and bread crumbs.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Capers + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  5. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 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
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into tender, flaky fish under the topping.
New potatoes
Cover the fish as a starchy layer that protects it from drying and adds body.
Shrimps
Add a briny, sweet seafood flavour that is spread across the fish beneath the potatoes.
White sauce
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the fish and potatoes from drying in the oven.
Brown bread crumbs
Sprinkled on top, they brown in the oven and add a crisp, golden finish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the fish, aiding flavour and browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Bake in a hot oven with water in the tin. Baking the fish in a hot oven over boiling water in a tin gently steams it, helping it cook through and stay moist. Overcooking dries flaky fish, so timing matters.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, capers, lemon, parsley, pepper, sauce, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, capers, lemon, parsley, pepper, sauce, butter. 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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