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Sole a LA Colbert

Sole fillet rolled around a buttered potato, stuffed with Maitre d'Hotel butter, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, fried and served with anchovy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sole a LA Colbert

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Fillet the sole or flounder.

  2. Roll the fillet around the buttered potato and tie with buttered paper.

Bake and stuff

  1. Place on a pan and bake at 400°F (200°C) for seven minutes.

  2. Remove the potato and stuff the fillet with Maitre d'Hotel butter.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll the stuffed fillet in egg and then in bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot fat for two minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with anchovy sauce.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  4. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Sole or flounder
Provides the delicate white fish fillet that is rolled, stuffed, and fried.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the fish so the coating holds during frying.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden coating when fried in hot fat.
Maitre d'hotel butter
Adds richness and moisture to the fish as it fills the cavity.

The step that matters

Frying the coated fillet. The fish must be coated evenly and fried in hot fat for a short time. Hot fat sets the egg and crumb coating quickly and browns it, while limiting how far the delicate fish cooks through. Fat that is too cool lets the coating soak up oil and fall apart.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, bread, anchovy, sauce. 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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