Cooking to Score – Sole Meuniere Recipe
I’ve seen a bunch of technological fads come and go over the years and I prefer to let these things sort themselves out before I jump in. I imagine some kind of support group where all these supposed “next great things” all meet and lament about how no one loves them any more. Something like this:
Beta format VCR – As leader of this group, I want to welcome you again to the Unwanted Technology Support Group. Who wants to share first?
9-inch Laser Disc – I have issues with you as leader. I was supposed to replace you years ago.
HD-DVD –Oooh, look at Mr. Big-and-mighty 9-inch Laser Disc, I was much better than you at a compact size…
Zune – Sounds like your Napolean complex is acting up, eh?
Google Plus – What am I doing here? I’m still relevant and much better than Facebook!
MySpace – Denial…
There are two reasons why I bring this up. First, as I mentioned in last Friday’s Guilty Pleasures post, about five years ago a buddy had an idea to start doing some cooking videos for YouTube. In my shortsightedness, I thought for sure YouTube would be joining that support group so it never went past the “wouldn’t it be cool” phase. Coulda, woulda, shoulda…. An idea I came up with was “Cooking to Score”, which would have simple recipes for the culinary clueless who wanted to impress a date. Now that I have this blog, I’ll start posting recipes here.
The second reason for bringing up the Unwanted Technology Support Group is that if you’re familiar with all of its members and think they are still superior technologies, you are a true geek. And if by some strange alignment of the stars, you actually got a date for Valentine’s Day with a beautiful lady (or man), you need this recipe.
It’s a classic French dish, but don’t be intimidated – it’s really simple and almost foolproof. The traditional recipe calls for Dover sole, but that can be pretty tough to find and expensive. I usually use tilapia, trout, or some other mild white fish. This time around I used cod. It’s not as mild as tilapia, but this was really fresh.
So how do I know that it’ll seduce the object of your desires? According to her biography, this was Julia Child’s first meal in France. It was a revelation to her and inspired her to go to cooking school, which led to cookbooks, tv shows, and Dan Akroyd spoofs.
You probably won’t be inspiring the next Julia Child, but maybe you’ll get a nice kiss goodnight…
Sole Meuniere (my recipe)
- 2 Filets of fish, less than an inch thick. (3 if it’s going to be one of those nights where she brings a hot friend)
- salt and pepper
- ½ cup of flour
- Clarified butter or oil
- Real butter
- ½ cup of chopped flat parsley
- Lemon wedges
- Cooked rice
- Heat the clarified butter or oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
- Season the filets with salt and pepper. Coat them with flour (shaking off excess) and place them in the pan presentation side* down. Cook for about 3-4 minutes until golden. You want to flour the fish right before you put it in the pan. If you do it in advance, it’ll get gummy and not crisp.
- Flip over and cook the other side. This shouldn’t take more than a minute or two to cook. Remove fish from pan and place on top of a bed of rice. Top with a generous amount of parsley.
- Pour off any excess fat from the pan and then add 2-3 tablespoons of regular butter. After the foam subsides, heat for a minute or two until it’s nutty brown.
- Pour the browned butter over the parsley and fish. As you do this, it’ll make a loud crackling sound. I suggest pouring the butter at the table to add a theatrical element to the presentation. Sounds cheesy, but it’s really alluring.
- Serve with a wedge of lemon.
* On a fish filet, one of the sides is going to be flat and smooth. The other side is where the bones were and it will be slightly rounded. That’s the presentation side.
Good luck! Let me know how that works for you geekboy…
About thefoodandwinehedonist
