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Filleted Soles

Filleted soles are seasoned, breaded, and fried fish fillets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Filleted Soles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Skin and wash the soles thoroughly.

  2. Divide each sole into four fillets and separate the meat from the bones.

  3. Soak the fillets in lemon juice for 1 hour.

Coat and fry

  1. Brush the fillets with egg white.

  2. Sprinkle with bread crumbs, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and parsley.

  3. Fry in butter until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve with melted butter or your choice of fish 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. Lemon + parsleytop 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Soles
Provide the delicate white fish flesh that forms the main body of the dish.
Egg white
Acts as a binder so the bread crumbs adhere to the fillets.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp coating that browns during frying.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and encourages golden browning, adding richness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mild flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Fry in butter until golden brown. Fillets are thin and delicate, so over-high heat can scorch the butter and crumb coating before the fish cooks through. Moderate heat gives even browning and a moist interior.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, egg, bread, pepper, parsley, butter):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, egg, bread, pepper, parsley, 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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