Name: Aspic of Fillets of Soles
Ingredients: Fillets of soles; Butter; Lemon juice; Salt; Pepper; Plain aspic jelly; Fillets of anchovies; Chopped parsley; Pounded ice

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 ↓

Aspic of Fillets of Soles

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.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Butter a baking dish and place the fillets of soles inside.
Squeeze a little lemon juice over the fillets and season with salt and pepper.
Cover the fillets with buttered paper and bake for 10 minutes.
Once cooked, press the soles between two plates until cold.
Pour a layer of plain aspic jelly into a mold and let it set.
Cut the fillets of soles into small, equal-sized rounds.
Arrange the sole rounds and fillets of anchovies on the set aspic jelly.
Sprinkle with chopped parsley and cover with another layer of aspic jelly.
Repeat layering sole and aspic until the mold is full.
Pack the mold in pounded ice.
Turn the aspic out onto a dish and garnish with slices of hard-boiled eggs using ravigote butter.

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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).