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Fried Soles

Fried soles are fish fillets coated in egg and breadcrumbs, then pan‑fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,649 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fried Soles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. If not already done, skin the soles, wash them, and wipe them dry.

  2. Beat the yolk and white of the egg together.

  3. Brush the fish with the egg mixture and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat the oil, dripping, or chosen fat in a frying pan until boiling.

  2. Fry one side of the fish for 3 to 5 minutes until cooked, then turn and cook the other side.

  3. Remove the fish from the pan and place on an old plate to drain excess grease for a few minutes.

  4. Serve on a hot dish, garnished with parsley.

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. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  4. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Soles
The main protein; it cooks through quickly in the hot fat and is the dish itself.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the fish so the coating stays on during frying.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat.
Olive oil, butter, lard, or dripping
Conducts heat to fry the fish and gives the coating its browning and flavour.

The step that matters

Heating the fat until boiling before frying. Hot fat sets the egg and crumb coating quickly, so it crisps instead of soaking up oil. Fat that is too cool makes the coating greasy and can cause it to fall off the fish.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, egg, bread):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Garlicfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, egg, bread. 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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