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Sole with Mushrooms

A baked sole fillet topped with a mushroom sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,580 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sole with Mushrooms

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 the fish

  1. Skin and trim the soles, then place them in a baking dish large enough for them to lie flat.

  2. Sprinkle the soles with salt and pepper, barely cover with milk, and cover with greased paper to retain steam.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 10 to 15 minutes, then drain well and place the soles on a hot dish.

  2. Prepare the mushroom sauce as directed, boiling it to reduce before adding the mushrooms to thicken it.

  3. Season the sauce to taste, pour it over the fish, 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. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Mushroom + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,480 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, cooked gently by steam in the milk.
Milk
Poaches the fish gently and keeps it moist as it cooks.
Mushrooms
Add flavour and body to the sauce as they thicken it.

The step that matters

Covering the soles with greased paper. The paper traps steam around the fish so it cooks gently and stays moist. Without it, the surface dries out and the flesh can toughen.

“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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