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Butterfish, Saute, Au Persil
Cut off the fins and thoroughly wipe six fresh butterfish. Place them on a plate, season with a light teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper, pour over three tablespoons milk, turn well in the seasoning then lightly roll in flour. Heat one and a half tablespoons melted butter in a black frying pan, arrange fish in it one beside another, gently fry five minutes on each side, lift up with skimmer, arrange on a dish and squeeze over the juice of half a lemon. Pick out the perfect leaves from three branches parsley, add them to pan with a half ounce butter and toss on the fire until a light brown, pour butter over fish and serve.
A straightforward whole-fish sauté finished with browned butter and parsley. The only real decisions are the pan and the timing.
- "A black frying pan"Cast iron or carbon steel, seasoned and heated properly. The point is a surface that browns the flour crust rather than steaming it; a heavy stainless skillet works, nonstick will not give the same colour.
- ButterfishPeprilus triacanthus, a small deep-bodied Atlantic panfish sold whole, often as dollarfish; the related harvestfish is sometimes sold under the same name. Fish markets on the East Coast still carry them in season; pompano, sand dabs, small porgies or whole trout stand in.
- Cut the frying timeFive minutes a side suits a fish of some thickness. Butterfish are small, usually only a few ounces and under an inch thick at the shoulder, so 2 to 3 minutes a side is enough. The flesh should just release from the backbone.
- More fat than statedA tablespoon and a half of butter will not cover the bottom of a pan holding six fish, and butter alone browns fast at frying heat. Use 3 to 4 tablespoons, or half butter and half neutral oil, and top up between batches if you fry in two lots.
- The milk dipThe three tablespoons of milk are there to make the flour adhere, not to form a batter. Turn the fish in it, lift, then flour and fry at once; flour left to sit on a wet fish turns pasty.
- SeasoningA teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of pepper for six small fish is on the assertive side by modern taste. Season by eye and finish with a little flaked salt at the table.
- Dry the parsleyWet leaves dropped into hot butter will spit hard. Spin or blot them first, then toss for well under a minute: you want the leaves crisp and the butter at the hazelnut stage, not black.
- YieldSix fish serve two generously or three modestly. Serve immediately, with the lemon squeezed on before the parsley butter goes over so the crust does not sit wet.
"Au persil" simply means with parsley, and the treatment here is the classic French finish for a small fried fish: lemon over the fish, then butter cooked to a nut brown with parsley leaves poured foaming on top, a first cousin to beurre noisette and to the meuniere service of sole. What makes it worth noticing is the fish itself. Butterfish were a cheap, plentiful Atlantic market fish, landed in quantity and sold whole, so there is something deliberate in giving a professional French finish to a fish many households would have thought fit only for plain pan-frying. The instructions are terse and precisely weighed, down to the half ounce of butter and the three branches of parsley.