Skip to main content
Main

Sole a LA Normandie

A baked sole fillet stuffed with a mixture of whitings, egg, breadcrumbs, and seasoned, topped with mushrooms and served with a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,047 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Sole a LA Normandie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and clean the sole, leaving the head on.

  2. Make an incision down the back and lift the flesh on each side about an inch.

  3. Remove the meat from the whitings.

  4. Simmer the bones and skin in 3 cups of cold water until needed.

  5. Pound the whitings' meat.

  6. Mix in the egg, bread crumbs, and seasoning.

Stuff and arrange

  1. Stuff this mixture into the sole's center and press it together.

  2. Arrange the mushrooms in a row on top of the sole.

  3. Place the fish on a well-buttered baking tray and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  4. Form the remaining fish mixture into small balls and place them on the tray.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 25 minutes.

  2. Make a sauce by combining the butter, flour, and the water used to boil the fish bones.

  3. Garnish the dish with the force-meat balls, lemon, and 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together12,525 recipes

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

  4. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,536 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned 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

Egg
Binds the fish mixture so it holds its shape when stuffed and baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the fish and help the stuffing hold together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce and keeps the tray from sticking.
Flour
Thickens the butter and fish-water mixture into a sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and moisture to the fish as it bakes.
Lemon rind
Adds bright aromatic flavor to the fish mixture.

The step that matters

Make a sauce by combining the butter, flour, and the water used to boil the fish bones.. Flour thickens liquid only when it is well mixed with the butter and fully hydrated in the liquid. Adding the liquid gradually while stirring prevents lumps and gives a smooth, even sauce.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes