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Fried Sole

A baked sole dish coated in mustard batter and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fried Sole

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

  1. Remove bones from the fish and flake it.

  2. Mix batter, mustard flour, cayenne, salt, and lemon juice to a smooth paste.

  3. Half-fill scallop shells with the flaked fish.

Bake and serve

  1. Spread the paste over the fish and cover with dried bread crumbs.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 10 minutes until heated through.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flaked fish
Forms the main body of the dish and cooks gently under the paste.
Batter
Binds the paste and adds moisture so the topping stays soft under the crumbs.
Mustard flour
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that balances the rich fish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the fish and paste.

The step that matters

Bake until just heated through. The fish is already cooked and the bake mainly warms it and browns the crumbs. Overbaking dries the fish and toughens the proteins, so watch the time closely.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, pepper, lemon, fish, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, lemon, fish, bread. 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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