No. 1154

Flounders a la Genlis

Plies Carrelets ou Limandes a la Genlis.

Remove the fillets from the flounders; pare them neatly, season and cover one side (the skin side) with fish forcemeat (No. 76), fold them in two. Butter a baking dish, throw chopped mushrooms on the bottom and besprinkle with a few spoonfuls of white wine; lay the fillets on top and on each one a small piece of butter and a little fish stock (No. 195). Set the dish into a slack oven and when cooked, remove and drain off the liquid; strain and reduce it with a bechamel sauce (No. 409), cover the fillets with this, dredge over with bread-crumbs and grated cheese, pour over a little melted butter and brown in a hot oven.

← No. 1153 Flounders a la Dieppoise Sole, Flounder & Turbot No. 1155 Flounders a la Joinville →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a kitchen with a stock pot, a forcemeat, and a béchamel already standing by; the whole dish is an assembly of those three cross-references plus two oven stages. The hinge is the second stage: the fillets are already cooked when the sauce goes on, so the browning must be fast and fierce or the fish overcooks under the crust.

Slack oven, then hot oven"Slack" is a cool oven; modern glosses put it somewhere around 275-325F, and folded flounder fillets will want only a short time at that heat. The final browning wants a hot oven or a broiler, just long enough to colour the crumbs and cheese.
The cross-referenced numbersNo. 76 is the book's fish forcemeat, No. 195 its fish stock, No. 409 its bechamel. A modern fish mousseline of white fish, egg white and cream does the forcemeat's job; any decent stock and bechamel will serve. You need only a few spoonfuls of stock and about a cup of bechamel for four.
"Pare them neatly"Trim the thin, ragged edge and the fine bones along the fillet's border so the two halves fold flush. Flounder fillets are thin enough that an unparred edge will curl and split away from the forcemeat.
Skin side inThe recipe puts the forcemeat on the side the skin came off, so that face ends up inside when the fillet is folded in two.
Reducing the cooking liquorThe drained liquid is wine, mushroom juices, stock, butter and the water the fish gave up. Ranhofer reduces it together with the bechamel; if you prefer, reduce the liquor on its own first and then whisk the bechamel in, which keeps the milk off a hard boil.
Grated cheeseMost likely a dry grating cheese such as Parmesan, grated fine. Anything moist will slump rather than brown in the short time the fish can stand under high heat.

A Little History

The name is generally traced to Stéphanie Félicité, Comtesse de Genlis (1746-1830), the writer and governess to the children of the Duc d'Orléans, whose name is often said to have attached itself to a small family of French garnishes and preparations in the nineteenth century in the same way Soubise and Mornay did. Charles Ranhofer, chef of Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a working encyclopedia rather than a domestic cookbook, which is why this entry reads as a set of instructions to a cook who already has forcemeat, fumet and béchamel to hand and who will find them at numbers 76, 195 and 409. The flounder here stands in for sole: Ranhofer routinely groups the three flatfish together and lets one recipe serve all, a habit visible in the French heading that offers plies, carrelets and limandes as alternatives.