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Baked Sole

Baked sole fillet topped with butter sauce and fine herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Sole

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. Remove the black skin from the sole and scrape the other side.

  3. Remove the gills and fins, then clean and wipe the sole with a cloth.

  4. Make an incision on each side down the back to the bone.

  5. Spread 1 ounce of butter in an oval gratin pan and lay the sole on top.

Bake and season

  1. Season with salt, pepper, and the juice of 1 lemon, then add ½ cup of stock or water.

  2. Bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a small saucepan, melt 1 ounce of butter and stir in 1 ounce of flour for 2 to 3 minutes.

  2. Gradually add ½ pint of water or stock, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  3. After 20 minutes, pour the cooking liquid from the sole into the sauce.

  4. Add 1.5 ounces of butter and the prepared fine herbs to the sauce, then bring to a boil.

  5. Place the sole on a serving dish, pour the sauce over it, and serve.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sole
Is the main fish whose delicate flesh cooks gently in the oven and flakes when done.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the fish and gives the sauce a smooth, rounded body.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with melted butter to form a roux.
Lemon
Its juice adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the fish and sauce.
Fine herbs
Mushrooms, eschalots and parsley add savoury aroma and freshness to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour into the butter before adding liquid. Cooking the flour in butter for 2 to 3 minutes removes its raw taste, and adding the liquid gradually helps the sauce stay smooth instead of lumpy.

“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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