Main course of a society dinner (the grand fish course)
Sole Meunière with Beurre Noisette
FestiveEvocation🧂 🍋moyen25 min
A sole fillet browned in butter, drizzled with a foaming beurre noisette and a squeeze of lemon, sprinkled with parsley. The great classic of fine Parisian tables: few ingredients, but a precise touch.
Why this dish? Germaine frequented the dinners of all musical and literary Paris, those salons where Les Six gathered around Satie and Cocteau. The sole meunière, simple and refined, embodies the clear, uncluttered elegance that this milieu — and its music — claimed.
You see, in Paris one could not entertain without fish, and sole meunière has that grace that it does not cheat: everything is in the butter that you let turn blond until the color of hazelnut. I loved it as I loved composing, without useless frills, clear and clean. One barely floured it, one basted it constantly with its own golden coating, and a squeeze of lemon was enough to awaken it. Serve it as soon as it sings in the pan, my friends, for a sole that waits is a sole lost.
Ingredients
- •Whole sole — 1 fine piece per guest (noble fish)
- •Fresh butter — at discretion (cooking and beurre noisette)
- •Wheat flour — a little (light coating)
- •Lemon — 1 (acidity)
- •Parsley — a bunch (freshness)
How it was made : At the time, sole arrived fresh from the Normandy coast by the morning train and was cooked in farm butter in a copper pan. The 'meunière' cooking method (from the miller's wife) refers to the light flour coating.
Sources : Auguste Escoffier, Le Guide culinaire, 1903 · Prosper Montagné, Larousse gastronomique, 1938