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Sole meunière

Name: Sole meunière
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 2
Ingredients: 2 piece Dover or lemon sole, skinned, on the bone; 2 tbsp plain flour; 0.5 tsp salt; 1 pinch freshly ground pepper; 2 tbsp clarified butter or olive oil, for frying; 50 g butter; 0.5 piece lemon, juiced; 2 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, chopped; 2 tbsp capers, rinsed (optional)

Whole sole dusted with flour, fried in butter and served under lemon, parsley and butter cooked until it smells of hazelnuts. Escoffier set out the method in 1903; the quantities here follow a modern recipe by Louise Pickford for two.

Editorial illustration of the documented recipe; not a photograph of a kitchen-tested result.

Servings: 2
Preparation: 10 min
Cooking: 10 min
Total: 20 min
Difficulty: Moderate

Equipment

Large frying pan that holds both fish (or cook one at a time)
Fish slice; warm serving platter

Servings2

Ingredients

The fish
2 Dover or lemon sole, skinned, on the bone
2 tbspplain flour
½ tspsalt
1 pinchfreshly ground pepper
2 tbspclarified butter or olive oil, for fryingEscoffier cooks in very hot butter, clarified for larger fish; Pickford uses olive oil.
The butter
50 gbutter
1 lemon, juiced
2 tbspflat-leaf parsley, chopped
2 tbspcapers, rinsed (optional)Pickford's addition; not part of Escoffier's meunière.

Shopping list

Method

Pat the sole dry, season with salt and pepper and dust both sides lightly with flour. Shake off the excess.
Why The thin flour coat browns quickly and keeps the skinless flesh from sticking.
Heat the clarified butter or oil in the pan over a medium heat. Fry the sole for 2 minutes until golden, turn carefully with a fish slice and fry 2 minutes more, until cooked through. Thick fish need a little longer: the flesh should lift from the bone.
Timer · 4 min4:00
Lay the fish on the warm platter, squeeze over a few drops of lemon juice, season lightly and scatter with the parsley.
Wipe the pan, add the butter and heat until it foams and turns light golden brown with a nutty smell (*beurre noisette*). Add the rest of the lemon juice, and the capers if using, then pour it over the fish at once and serve.
Why Escoffier pours the hot butter over damp parsley so the dish reaches the table still foaming; a fish served with lemon alone is called *doré*, not meunière.
Timer · 2 min2:00

To drink & serve with

King Edward
Pickford serves it with wedges of King Edward potatoes roasted with garlic, and green beans.

Substitutions

Dover sole → Lemon sole or plaice (Pickford). Fillets of any small flatfish cook in about half the time.
Plain flour (gluten-free) → Rice flour or a fine gluten-free flour.

Common mistakes

Letting the butter burn black: it turns bitter. Stop at hazelnut brown.
Making the butter in the frying fat: the burnt flour specks spoil it. Wipe the pan first.

Storage & reheating

Eat at once.

Safety

Contains fish, gluten (flour) and milk (butter). Sole on the bone: warn guests about bones.

Allergens

Fish · Gluten · Milk

Check labels: stock, bacon and sauces can contain further allergens.

The miller's wife's method

Meunière means the miller's wife, a nod to the flour. Escoffier's Guide culinaire treats it as a general method for small fish, slices and fillets, and even turbot up to 1.5 kg: season, flour, and cook in very hot butter in a frying pan. He separates two finishes. Served with lemon only, the fish is doré. À la meunière, it gets lemon juice, salt, pepper and blanched parsley, then butter cooked à la noisette poured over at the last moment.

Julia Child's description of her first sole meunière in Rouen, in My Life in France, made the dish famous with English-speaking readers; Louise Pickford quotes it in her recipe.

[1][2]

Butter at two temperatures

The fish is fried in fat hot enough to brown the flour fast, so the thin flesh cooks through before it dries. Clarified butter, or oil, tolerates that heat; whole butter burns. The sauce is a second, fresh batch of butter, heated until its milk solids turn golden and nutty, sharpened with lemon. Pickford's capers and mixed herbs are a modern touch.

[1][2]

How it connects

Place

origin France In preparation

Potato

pairs with King Edward

Recipe

related Sole Ostend style (sole à l'ostendaise)