Jane Grigson's Fish Book - Jane Grigson [193]
l large sole, skinned and trimmed
salt, freshly ground black pepper
nut of butter
4 tablespoons dry white wine
4 tablespoons fish stock*
juice of ½ lemon
sprigs of cress
1 handful of curly endive
lemon wedges and strips of zest
Rinse and dry the sole, then season it. Butter an ovenproof oval plate or dish and add the sole. Pour the wine and stock over it, with a few drops of the lemon juice. Bake in the oven preheated to gas 6, 200°C (400°F) for about 8 minutes, basting with the juices twice. (The sole should be almost done.) Taste the juices and add more lemon if necessary.
Put the sole under a very hot grill just to glaze the fish and complete the cooking. Transfer to a warmed plate and garnish with sprigs of cress, curly endive, lemon wedges and strips of zest.
VARIATIONS The variations on this simple theme are endless: you can work up the juices with butter, or cream and butter. You can put the fish on to a bed of lightly cooked tomato with a little onion. Instead of the white wine and stock, you can use a splendid red Burgundy – omit the lemon, add a slice or two of onion and thicken the sauce lightly with beurre manié.
SOLE FLORENTINE Bake the sole in fish fumet*, in a buttered dish. Spread a layer of cooked, well drained, and buttered spinach on a serving dish. Lay the sole on top. Cover with Mornay sauce*, then sprinkle on some grated cheese – Gruyère and Parmesan are best – and glaze under a hot grill.
SOLE SUR LE PLAT AUX MOULES Open 600 ml (1 pt) of mussels in the usual way (p. 239); remove from their shells. Use the strained mussel liquor to replace the water in the Sole sur le plat recipe, and add a shallot chopped almost to pulp. When the sole is cooked, place the mussels round it and sprinkle the sole with a mixture of parsley and white breadcrumbs. Cook a moment or two longer under the grill and serve.
SOLE WITH CIDER
Our best meal of the tour of Great Britain whilst researching for British Cookery, was at the Box Tree in Ilkley and was as good as any I have had in France in recent years. We arrived on a pouring night, feeling damp and sceptical. Kindly girls removed dripping umbrellas. Warm Yorkshire voices sounded piquant and welcoming among the treasures that Malcolm Reid and Colin Long had collected over the years.
They started off nearly forty years ago with a snack bar in Leeds; then came a tea-room in Ilkley which stretched and grew into the sequence of rooms we see today like some fairy-tale cottage, small outside, endless within. (Helen Avis now owns the restaurant.)
Here is one of their deceptively simple recipes to test your skill – not just as a cook, but as a buyer of fish since you need sole from the top of the catch.
Serves 2
750 g (1½ lb) sole, filleted
30 g (1 oz) butter
275 ml (9 fl oz) dry cider
90 ml (3 fl oz) water
2 rounded teaspoons plain flour
lemon juice, salt, pepper
2 rounded teaspoons chopped parsley
2 tablespoons single cream
Fold fillets over, skinned side under. Lay in an ovenproof dish rubbed with a little of the butter. Pour on liquids, lay butter papers on top, and poach in the oven preheated to gas 4, 180°C (350°F) for 12-15 minutes. Keep an eye on it to avoid overcooking.
Meanwhile melt the rest of the butter in a small pan, stir in the flour off the heat, then return to the heat and cook gently for 2 minutes, stirring. Set aside until the sole is ready, then strain the liquor from the fish on to the butter and flour and cook the resulting sauce, stirring, until it loses any taste of flour. Season with a squeeze of lemon, salt and pepper. Add parsley and cream. Pour enough of the sauce over the sole fillets, arranged on a clean warm serving dish, to coat them nicely and serve at once.
SOLE WITH ORANGE SAUCE
Serves 6
2 large sweet oranges
juice of 1 lemon
3 large sole
salt, freshly ground black pepper, cayenne
300 ml (10 fl oz) fish stock*
150 ml (5 fl oz) dry white wine
6 tablespoons whipping cream
3 large