No. 1271

Fried Soles a la Colbert

Soles Frites a la Colbert

The sole is an excellent tasting fish, its meat being delicate and choice. It is found in almost every sea. The shape is nearly oblong, and its mouth long and projecting.

Fried Soles a la Colbert.—Dress a medium sized sole, paring off the black skin; detach the fillets from the bone on the same side, two inches from the head, and three from the tail; break the bone with the dull edge of a knife, three inches from the head and four from the tail; dip the fish into salted milk, roll it in flour, then immerse entirely in beaten eggs, and roll in fresh bread-crumbs; let the sole fry slowly so that it cooks, and is of a fine color, and when done, remove the piece of spinal bone, and fill the inside with maitre d'hotel butter (No. 581). Dress on a hot dish and garnish with cut lemons (No. 113).

← No. 1270 Smelts in Dauphin a la Hamlin Sole, Flounder & Turbot No. 1272 Soles a la Lutece →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a cook who can bone a flatfish from the top side without cutting it in two. That single piece of knifework is the whole dish; everything after it is a standard breading and fry.

The hinge: lift the fillets, leave them attachedSkin the dark side, then run a knife along the backbone and free the two upper fillets outward, stopping short of the fin line so they stay hinged at the edges. Crack the spine at both ends with the back of the knife so the loosened section can be pulled out through the top once the fish is fried and the cavity filled with butter.
Which fishTrue Dover sole (Solea solea) is a North Atlantic fish and is expensive where it is sold at all. Petrale, lemon sole, and the flounders sold as "sole" in the US behave much the same for this preparation, though thinner fillets tear more easily when lifted. Buy a whole fish of about 12-14 oz for one serving.
Salted milkSimply milk seasoned with salt; a short dip, not a soak. It seasons the flesh and helps the flour adhere. A minute is plenty, and pat off the excess before flouring.
Fry slowly, but not coolThe recipe asks only that the sole 'fry slowly so that it cooks, and is of a fine color,' with no temperature or time given. In modern practice, fat at roughly 340-350F will brown the crumb while letting a fish this size cook through; much cooler and the breading absorbs oil and goes soft.
Maitre d'hotel butterRanhofer's No. 581 is a compound butter: butter worked with chopped parsley, lemon juice and seasoning. Make it soft rather than chilled so it slumps into the cavity and melts at once; about 2 tablespoons per fish.
The lemon garnishHis No. 113 is the cross-reference for cut lemons; the recipe gives no further detail. Plain wedges serve the same purpose.
ServingOne fish per person, sent out the moment the butter goes in. The breading softens within a few minutes as the butter runs, so this is not a dish to hold under a lamp.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially the house repertory written down in French restaurant order. The Colbert garnish - maitre d'hotel butter, sometimes with meat glaze folded in - is generally traced to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's finance minister, whose name was attached to a number of nineteenth-century preparations without much evidence of any connection to the man. What made the sole version a set piece in the grand kitchens was the boning: presenting a whole fish, crisply fried, with its spine gone and its interior filled with melting green butter, was a small demonstration that the house employed someone who could handle a knife. Ranhofer's brief note that the sole "is found in almost every sea" reflects the loose commercial naming of flatfish then as now, since the true sole of European menus never lived in American waters.