Skip to main content
Main

Fillet of Sole Au Gratin

A baked sole fillet topped with mushroom ketchup, anchovy sauce, sherry, mushrooms, herbs, consommé, breadcrumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,099 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fillet of Sole Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a baking tin and place the sole fillets inside.

Make the sauce and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix mushroom ketchup, Anchovy Sauce, sherry, sliced mushrooms, parsley, chives, consommé, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Pour the mixture over the fillets and cover the tin with buttered paper.

  3. Bake for 15 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the paper, sprinkle browned breadcrumbs on each fillet, and add a small piece of butter on top.

  2. Return to the oven for 5 minutes before serving.

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. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Ketchup + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Sole fillets
Provide the delicate white fish that is baked and served in the dish.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture that releases into the sauce as it bakes.
Consommé
Adds savoury liquid that moistens the fish and forms the sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Browned breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping through browning.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the topping brown and the fish stay moist.

The step that matters

Covering the tin with buttered paper. The paper traps steam so the fish cooks gently in the sauce and stays moist, and it must be removed before the breadcrumbs are added so they can brown.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, ketchup, anchovy, sauce, sherry, chive, butter):

  1. Capersbetter flavor fit
  2. Thymeabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Garlicabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, ketchup, anchovy, sauce, sherry, chive, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes