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To Boil Soles

A simple boiled fish dish using soles, vinegar, horseradish, lemon, and optional seafood sauces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,155 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

To Boil Soles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin the soles on both sides.

Poach the fish

  1. In a pot, add water, vinegar, salt, and shredded horseradish.

  2. Bring the water to a gentle boil.

  3. Carefully add the soles and boil gently, skimming off any scum.

Serve

  1. Serve with shrimp, lobster, crab, or anchovy sauce.

  2. Garnish with sliced lemon and sprinkle with shredded horseradish.

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. Horseradish + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Vinegar + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Soles
The main fish, which turns firm and flaky as it cooks gently in the liquid.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the poaching liquid, brightening the mild flavor of the fish.
Shredded horseradish
Contributes a sharp, pungent aroma that flavors the poaching water and the finished fish.

The step that matters

Keep the water at a gentle boil. A hard, rolling boil can break up delicate fish and cause it to toughen and fall apart, so the soles should simmer gently once added.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, horseradish):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, horseradish. 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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