WebJacques Pepin: Directed by Laurie Donnelly. With Jacques Pepin, Ming Tsai. This week on Simply Ming, legendary French chef Jacques Pepin joins Ming in the …
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A classic sole meunière is made with a bone-in fillet, but boneless sole is faster and easier. You'll find a recipe for clarified butter here. This recipe is part of The New Essentials of French Cooking, a guide to definitive dishes every modern cook should master. Heat oven to 200 degrees and place a large oven-safe plate or baking sheet inside.
S ole meunière “may sound like a fancy French recipe”, but it is, in fact, “aan extremely simple dish to cook”, as Frances Bissell admits, relying more on the quality of the ingredients than on any particular culinary skill.
Rick Stein fillets his sole meunière before serving, but that risks the fish going cold. The simplest recipes, Boulestin’s included, top the fish with brown butter and leave it at that, but even Mrs Beeton and David concede a squeeze of lemon juice and “a scrap of parsley” improves it.
Marcus Wareing’s sole meunière: fry in oil first, then clean the pan and finish in butter. Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking rails against those (me!) who describe this dish as simple to prepare – “simple in conception, certainly, but in execution no”.