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Filet of Sole, Horly
Carefully lift the filets from a fresh three-pound flounder. Skin and cut each filet in three equal slanting pieces. Season all over with half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons white pepper, then lightly turn in flour, dip in beaten egg and gently roll in bread crumbs, plunge in boiling fat and fry ten minutes. Drain well, sprinkle a little salt over, dress on a hot dish with folded napkin, decorate with six quarters lemon and a little parsley greens, and serve with a gill hot tomato sauce separately.
A straightforward breaded fry dressed up with French service. The only real trap is the frying time, which will destroy the fish if taken literally.
- Frying timeTen minutes in hot fat turns thin crumbed fillets of flatfish to leather. Pieces cut from a three-pound flounder are perhaps half an inch thick and need two to three minutes total, until the crumbs are deep gold. Work in batches so the fat does not drop below temperature.
- "Boiling fat"Fat does not boil; the phrase means fat hot enough to bubble furiously when the fish goes in, roughly 350-375F. Below that the crumbs soak; much above and they colour before the fish is done.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so two saltspoons of white pepper is half a teaspoon. That is a lot of pepper for a pound of fish; season to taste.
- GillHalf a cup. Enough tomato sauce for two or three people served in a small boat alongside, not poured over, so the crust stays crisp.
- Sole and flounderThe recipe calls itself sole and then tells you to buy flounder, which is honest about the American market: true Dover sole is a European fish, and "sole" on a US counter has long meant flounder or a related flatfish. Any thin white flatfish fillet works.
- YieldA three-pound whole flounder gives roughly a pound of skinned fillet. Each filet is cut in three, so the dish comes to six pieces if two fillets are lifted, twelve if all four are; the six lemon quarters suggest six. Either way it serves two generously or three modestly as a main course.
- BreadingFlour, egg, crumbs is the standard sequence, but the coating adheres far better if the breaded pieces rest ten to fifteen minutes before they meet the fat. Press the crumbs on rather than shaking them loose.
- The folded napkinA period serving convention: a linen napkin folded on the hot platter absorbs frying oil and keeps the fish from steaming in its own drippings. A rack or paper does the same job now.
"Horly" is a variant spelling of Orly, appearing in period menus and cookbooks alongside the more familiar form, and naming the classic French treatment in which fillets of fish are seasoned, coated and deep-fried, then sent to table with tomato sauce served separately. The name is generally traced to the Orly district south of Paris, though the connection is traditional rather than documented, and nineteenth-century French cookbooks already list filets de sole à l'Orly as a fixed formula. Here the dish is translated into terms an English-speaking household could buy, which means substituting flounder for sole and offering the sauce in a small boat as restaurant service demanded. The folded napkin and the six lemon quarters are the giveaway that the author was thinking of a dining room, not a kitchen table.