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SOLE, FILLETED AND MARINADED (or Sole a l'Orly)
Divide the fillets of a large sole into fingers, an inch wide. Put them into a dish, season with pepper and salt, and put with them a small finely-minced onion, a table-spoonful of picked and washed parsley, and a little oil and vinegar. Let the fish lie in this marinade for an hour, and turn it over occasionally, that it may be equally impregnated with the flavour. Make a little frying-batter as follows. Put four ounces of flour into a bowl, and stir into it a pinch of salt and a gill of lukewarm water. Beat the yolks of two eggs with two table-spoonfuls of oil, and add the mixture to the flour, etc. The batter ought to be a little thicker than cream. A few minutes before the batter is wanted, whisk the whites of the eggs, and add them to it. Drain the fillets on a clean cloth, and dip each piece separately into the batter, with which it should be covered entirely, but not too thickly. Fry the fillets in boiling fat, and move them about till they are equally browned. Drain them from the fat, and serve on a neatly-folded napkin. Send maitre d'hotel, tomato, Dutch, shrimp, or white sauce to table in a tureen. Time to fry the fillets, about a quarter of an hour. Sufficient for three or four persons.
A straightforward fritter of sole in a light beer-less batter, and the only real trap is the frying time given at the end.
- Frying timeA quarter of an hour is far too long for inch-wide fingers of sole in batter. At 350-375F they are done in two to three minutes, when the coating is pale gold; longer and the fish dries out and the batter turns leathery. The original figure presumably reflects a large pan of many batches, or fat that had cooled badly.
- "Boiling fat"Fat does not boil at any usable frying temperature; the phrase means deep fat at frying heat, around 350-375F. Use a thermometer and fry in small batches so the temperature does not crash.
- A gillIn a British book of this period, a quarter of an imperial pint, about 5 fl oz (a generous half cup). With 4 oz flour (close to a cup), two yolks and 2 tablespoons oil, the batter should coat the back of a spoon and just cling: slightly thicker than cream, as stated.
- The whipped whitesFold them in at the last moment and use the batter immediately. They are the only leavening here, and a batter that has stood loses its lift and fries heavy.
- Marinade lengthOne hour in oil, vinegar, onion and parsley is right for sole; much longer and the acid begins to firm and whiten the flesh before it ever meets the fat. Drain and pat thoroughly dry or the batter will slide off.
- The fishDover sole is expensive and often unavailable; lemon sole, flounder, plaice or any thin white fillet behaves the same way. One large sole is what the recipe assumes for its three-to-four-person yield.
- ServingThe folded napkin was there to absorb fat; a rack over paper does the job better and keeps the crust crisp. Send one of the listed sauces separately rather than over the fritters.
The alternative name places this among the many nineteenth-century dishes labelled a l'Orly (also spelled Horly), a French restaurant formula for fish fillets marinaded, dipped in batter, deep-fried and sent to table with tomato sauce; the origin of the name is disputed and usually left unexplained even in period French manuals. The recipe demonstrates two techniques at once: a short acid-and-herb marinade to season fish that is otherwise very mild, and a yolk-and-water batter lightened with whisked whites, a common pate a frire of the era. The long list of accompanying sauces, from maitre d'hotel to Dutch (hollandaise) to shrimp, suggests a cook with a stock of made sauces to draw on rather than one starting each dish from nothing.