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Paupiettes of Soles
Skin the soles, then lift the fillets carefully from the bones and trim them. Prepare some whiting forcemeat, spread a layer of it on each fillet, roll them, and wrap each one in a separate sheet of buttered paper, keeping them in shape by tying a string around them. Bake the paupiettes in the oven. When cooked remove the paper, place them on a hot dish, with a turned mushroom on each, pour over some Allemande sauce and serve.
A late-Escoffier-era restaurant preparation written in shorthand for cooks who already knew the component recipes. Three things need filling in: the forcemeat, the paper wrapping, and the sauce.
- The hinge: keep the roll looseForcemeat expands as it sets, so spread a thin layer — about 1/8 inch — and roll without tension. A tightly packed paupiette splits along the seam and the filling weeps into the paper.
- Whiting forcemeatA mousseline: raw whiting flesh pounded or processed with egg white, seasoning and a little cold cream, kept over ice throughout. Roughly 8 oz fish to 1 egg white and 4-5 fl oz cream. The fish sold as 'whiting' in the US is silver hake, a different species from the European whiting but a workable stand-in; pollock, haddock or the trim from the soles themselves all work.
- Buttered paperParchment, cut into rectangles, buttered on the side touching the fish, and tied. Foil traps more moisture than paper and will steam the paupiettes more; if you use it, leave the ends open.
- Oven temperature and timeThe original gives neither. 350-375F for 12-15 minutes for paupiettes made from ordinary sole fillets — the forcemeat should be firm and just springy. Fish protein sets by about 130-140F internally; past that the mousseline turns dense and grainy.
- "A turned mushroom"A peeled cap fluted with a paring knife in a spiral of shallow curved cuts, cooked white in water with butter and lemon juice. Purely decorative; a plain simmered cap tastes the same.
- Allemande sauceVelouté thickened with an egg-yolk-and-cream liaison off the boil and finished with lemon; for a fish dish the velouté is made with fish stock. Keep it below a simmer once the yolks go in or it will curdle. Many modern kitchens substitute a white wine sauce or beurre blanc without loss.
- The fishTrue Dover sole is expensive and often unavailable; grey sole, lemon sole, flounder and plaice all fillet and roll well. Ask for the fillets skinned, and keep the bones and trim for the stock the sauce needs.
- YieldOne flatfish gives four fillets, so four paupiettes. Two per person as a course, with the sauce spooned over at the last moment so it does not skin.
Paupiette is an old French kitchen word for a thin slice of meat or fish spread with stuffing and rolled — the same idea as a beef paupiette or an Italian involtino — and it was standard vocabulary in the classical repertoire by the late nineteenth century. The recipe's terseness is the point: it assumes the reader can already turn out a whiting mousseline and an Allemande sauce, both of which had their own entries elsewhere in the professional canon. Whiting was a standard forcemeat fish because its flesh is lean, white and mildly flavored, binding cleanly without competing with the sole. Allemande — velouté finished with egg yolks, which Carême ranked among the great sauces and which Escoffier later demoted to a derivative of velouté rather than a mother sauce — marks the dish as belonging to the older, richer service, before lighter butter and wine sauces took over the fish course.