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175 g (6 oz) unsalted French butter

seasoned flour

parsley or chervil, chopped

With a zester remove the thin outer peel of one of the oranges. Reserve the fine shreds for the garnish. Squeeze both oranges and add the lemon juice.

Season the sole fillets, place them on a shallow dish and pour over half the citrus juice. Set aside for at least an hour.

To make the sauce: boil down the stock and wine to 150 ml (5 fl oz). Add the remaining citrus juice and boil again briefly. Stir in the cream, boil for 1 minute and then, off the heat, whisk in the egg yolks. Return to a very low heat and beat in two-thirds of the butter, bit by bit. Season to taste, pour into a sauceboat and keep warm.

Drain the fish, pat dry with kitchen paper and flour lightly. Cook gently in the remaining butter, then transfer it to a hot serving dish. Scatter with the herbs and orange zest and serve with the sauce.

VOL-AU-VENT À LA NORMANDE

This is a fine dish which can be adjusted to suit the resources of your fishmonger. Turbot, brill or John Dory could be used instead of sole. Prawns instead of oysters (include their shells when making stock for the sauce Normande).

Serves 6

500–750 g (1–1½ lb) sole or other white fish

dry cider or dry white wine

12 oysters or 18 cooked prawns or shrimps

1 kg (2 lb) mussels

sauce Normande*, made very thick

250 g (8 oz) mushrooms

60 g (2 oz) butter

parsley, chopped

1 large or 12 small baked vol-au-vent cases

Poach the sole or other fish in just enough cider or wine to cover.

Open the oysters and mussels in the usual way (see pp. 254 and 239); add juice with the sole juices to the sauce Normande. Cook the mushrooms gently in the butter: strain off the juice and add it to the sauce.

Divide the cooked sole or white fish into suitably small pieces. Reheat in the completed sauce with the oysters or prawns, and the mussels and mushrooms. Lastly mix in some parsley. Pour into the reheated vol-au-vent case(s) and serve immediately.

This is a recipe which can be prepared entirely in advance, apart from the final reheating.

SPANISH MACKEREL see MACKEREL

SPRAT see A FEW WORDS ABOUT… SPRAT

† SQUID & CUTTLEFISH

Loligo spp. & Sepia officinalis

Although octopus and cuttlefish and squid are much eaten in southern Europe, the cephalopod most usually encountered at the fishmonger’s shop, whether in Britain or the States, is the squid. It is tender and delicious and easy to cook. Some squid are tiny, the body part about 7 cm (3 inches) long: they are the ones for quick frying. Others are most substantial, the body part over 12½ cm (5 inches) long: they are the ones for stuffing and stewing and gentle frying. Whatever the size, they will have two triangular finny flaps, attached to the body. Unless the fishmonger has removed it, there will also be a fine purplish red veil of delicate transparency: this, alas, has to be removed as its appearance is spoiled by cooking, though it is not inedible. Tentacles and ‘arms’ tassel out from the head, ten of them, if you care to count. All in all a strange and beautiful creature.

Or don’t you agree? Perhaps the appearance is a little daunting to the cook the first time he or she encounters squid. Even more daunting is the sight of a frozen block of 14 kg (28 lb) or even 30 kg (60 lb) of squid, looking like a compressed Last Judgement. Some fishmongers have to buy them this way. They are tender and good, but not so good as fresh ones, which may look inky and muddled by comparison.

The first encounter with a squid can be memorable and messy. Mine happened years ago, in 1959, when squid was still an exotic, something one ate in Greek-Cypriot restaurants in London. Yet we saw this creature on top of a pile of crabs on the quay at Seahouses in Northumberland. It looked improbable. Surely it should have come out of the Mediterranean, not the bitter North Sea.

We took it back to the cottage in Craster where we were staying. We looked at it. Tentacles, bag of a body – where did one start? How could so