No. 1279

Soles Baked Italian Style

Soles au Gratin a l'Italienne

For this dish select medium sized soles, lay them on the table the white side underneath, then proceed to cut off the heads on the bias; from this side suppress the gills and empty the sole thoroughly; cut off the thin tail end and scrape the surface with the dull edge of a knife to detach slightly the skin covering the tail, keeping the tail bone in position with the same side of the knife; seize the skin with a towel, and tear it off violently with one stroke. Use a pair of large scissors to remove the small bones found on the outside, and scrape the white skin, then wash, wipe, and make a straight incision on the skinned side to the middle bone, then detach the fillets half an inch on each side. Butter a baking dish, lay in it the soles, having the skinned side down, and pour over two gills of white wine, salt and pepper; lay a few pieces of butter on top, and let the stock come to a boil, then set the dish into the oven for five minutes; when through lay six channeled mushroom heads (No. 118) in a straight row on top, cover with an Italian sauce (No. 484), and dredge over a thin layer of bread-raspings; pour over melted butter, and color in a hot oven for twelve to fifteen minutes; then serve.

← No. 1278 Soles, Venetian Style—Fillets Sole, Flounder & Turbot No. 1280 Fried Soles →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's method is a classic gratin: the fish is barely set in wine, then finished under fierce top heat so the sauce glazes rather than stews. The two oven stages are the whole point, and the second one should be as hot as the oven will go.

Two gills of wineA gill is half a cup, so two gills is one cup of dry white wine. The recipe does not say how many soles the dish holds.
"Hot oven"For the twelve to fifteen minute browning, a very hot oven, roughly 450-475F, or the broiler with the dish six inches down. The recipe gives no temperature for the first five-minute stage, which is only meant to set the flesh.
The wine must boil before it goes in"Let the stock come to a boil" means on the stovetop, in the same buttered baking dish. Sending cold wine into the oven adds several minutes during which the sole overcooks.
Italian sauce (No. 484)A sauce italienne in the French professional manner: a duxelles of finely chopped mushrooms and shallot cooked down in white wine, bound with demi-glace and tomato, finished with chopped ham and fines herbes. A thick, well-reduced mushroom-and-tomato demi-glace is the working substitute; a thin sauce will slide off and boil.
Channeled mushroom headsNo. 118 is the fluted or turned mushroom cap, scored in spirals with a paring knife for looks. Whole sauteed caps do the same job on the plate.
Bread-raspingsNot fresh crumbs. Raspings are the dried, grated outer crust of stale bread, sieved fine, and they brown fast and evenly. Dry fine breadcrumbs, sieved, are the closest thing on a shelf today.
Sole, and what you will actually buyThe book means true sole, on the bone; it tears the dark skin off in one stroke and merely scrapes the white side. A fishmonger will do it. Most American "sole" is flounder or another flatfish; it works, but is thinner, so shorten the first oven stage.
YieldThe recipe gives no yield; reckon one medium sole per person. The six mushroom caps are laid in a straight row on top.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer cooked at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially the restaurant's working repertoire set down at enormous length - which is why a recipe for baked sole opens with three sentences on how to gut and skin the fish. "A l'italienne" here has nothing to do with Italian home cooking; in the nineteenth-century French professional canon it meant a dish finished with sauce italienne, the duxelles-and-demi-glace preparation codified in the grand-cuisine sauce tables, and the name signalled the mushroom-and-ham garnish rather than any national origin. The au gratin treatment of flatfish - set in wine, sauced, crumbed, blasted brown - follows the same logic of the professional kitchen rather than the domestic one.