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Baked Soles

A baked fish dish with fried batter, anchovy essence, wine, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Baked Soles

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. In a dish, combine the fried batter, a pinch of coarse sea salt, cayenne pepper, essence of anchovies, and dry white wine.

  3. Clean and dry the soles, then lay them in the dish.

Coat and bake

  1. Cover the soles with a thick layer of bread crumbs and moisten with melted butter.

  2. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

  3. Place a layer of shrimp between the soles and mix lemon juice with the breadcrumbs if desired.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  5. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Soles
Form the main body of the dish, cooking into flaky, tender fillets.
Fine dry bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust over the fish while it bakes.
Melted butter
Adds fat that moistens the crumbs and helps them brown.
Dry white wine
Adds moisture and light acidity to the batter mixture around the fish.
Essence of anchovies
Adds a savory, salty depth that seasons the fish from within the mixture.
Fried batter
Adds body and savory richness to the liquid mixture the fish sits in.

The step that matters

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Fish cooks quickly and dries out if overbaked. It is done when the flesh turns opaque and flakes easily at the thickest point.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, white wine, bread, butter, lemon):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, white wine, bread, butter, lemon. 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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