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Fried Soles

Fried soles are fish fillets coated in flour, egg yolk, and breadcrumbs, fried in fat and served with a butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fried Soles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soles

  1. Remove the skin from the dark side of the soles, clean them, and wipe them dry.

  2. Dredge a little flour over the soles.

  3. Brush the soles with the yolk of a well-beaten egg.

  4. Dip the soles into bread crumbs.

Fry and drain

  1. Fry the soles in sufficient boiling fat until they are light brown.

  2. Lay the fried soles on a cloth to absorb excess grease.

Make the butter sauce and serve

  1. For the butter sauce, melt the butter in a clean saucepan with the water.

  2. Dredge in a little flour and shake over a clear fire until it boils.

  3. Dish the soles on a neatly folded napkin and garnish with fried parsley.

  4. Pour the sauce into a tureen and serve with the fried soles.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole in its coating.
Egg yolk
Acts as a binder so the bread crumbs adhere to the fish.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried.
Butter
Provides richness and fat for the sauce, carrying its flavour.
Flour
Dries the surface and, in the sauce, thickens the butter as it boils.

The step that matters

Frying the coated soles. The fat must be fully boiling so the coating sets and browns quickly; otherwise the crumbs absorb grease and turn soggy. Draining on a cloth removes excess oil.

“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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