Skip to main content
Main

Sole Pie

A baked pie of sole fillets layered with oysters, seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg, mace, broth, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Sole Pie

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 the fins from the soles and season them with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and mace.

  2. Layer the seasoned soles with oysters in a dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Add the oyster liquor, broth, and butter to the dish.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until cooked 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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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
Provide the main fish layer that forms the body of the pie.
Oysters
Add briny flavor and a tender, juicy texture as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the dish as it bakes.
Broth
Supplies liquid that keeps the fish moist while it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through. Fish turns dry and rubbery when overcooked, and underdone fish is unsafe to eat. Checking that the flesh is opaque and flakes easily helps you hit the point where it is just done.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, pepper, nutmeg, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, pepper, nutmeg, butter. 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.

You might also like

Mock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes