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Filets of Red Snapper
Bone and skin a three-pound piece fresh red snapper, then cut it in six equal filets. Season with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon white pepper, well divided, dip each piece in cold milk and lightly roll in flour. Heat one tablespoon melted butter in frying pan, lay in the filets one beside another and fry for five minutes on each side, then set to bake in the oven for ten minutes. Remove, arrange on a hot dish, squeeze the juice of half a lemon over them, sprinkle half teaspoon freshly chopped parsley on top, add an ounce of butter to the pan, shuffle the pan on the fire until it attains a nice brown color, add half teaspoon anchovy essence, mix well, pour over the fish and serve.
A straightforward meunière treatment with an anchovy-spiked brown butter. Two things in the original need adjusting: the cooking times are long for filets, and one tablespoon of butter is not enough fat for six pieces.
- The hinge: don't overcook itFive minutes per side plus ten in the oven will dry out red snapper filets, which are lean and thin. Figure 2-3 minutes per side in the pan for filets under an inch thick, and skip the oven stage entirely unless the pieces are unusually thick; the fish is done when it flakes at the thickest point, around 130-135F.
- Oven temperatureThe original names none. If you do finish thicker pieces in the oven, 375F for 4-6 minutes is enough.
- More butter for fryingOne tablespoon will scorch and leave the pan dry before the filets are turned. Use 3-4 tablespoons, or a mix of butter and a neutral oil, which raises the smoke point and browns more evenly.
- Anchovy essenceA Victorian and Edwardian bottled condiment of pounded anchovy, salt and spice, still sold in Britain. Substitute half a teaspoon of anchovy paste, or one mashed oil-packed anchovy fillet, stirred into the browned butter off the heat.
- "Shuffle the pan on the fire"Swirling it constantly over the heat so the milk solids in the butter brown evenly rather than catching in one spot. Once it smells nutty and turns hazelnut brown, take it off; the residual heat will carry it further.
- The milk dipNot decorative. The milk gives the flour something to cling to and helps the crust brown. Shake off excess flour or it will gum up in the pan.
- YieldSix filets from three pounds of fish serves four to six, depending on whether the trimming loss is yours or the fishmonger's. Have the fishmonger bone and skin a three-pound piece for you and you will land closer to two pounds of filet.
- SubstitutionsAny firm, mild white fish works: grouper, black bass, tilefish, haddock. Genuine red snapper is frequently mislabeled at retail, so buy from a counter you trust if the species matters to you.
This is French restaurant technique applied to a Gulf of Mexico fish: filets dipped, floured, fried in butter and finished with lemon, parsley and beurre noisette is meuniere in all but name. Red snapper appears regularly on American hotel and restaurant menus by the late nineteenth century, once rail lines and iced railcars could move Gulf fish north from Pensacola and New Orleans, and it turns up often with a French sauce attached. The anchovy essence is the English element -- bottled fish condiments were common pantry items in Anglo-American kitchens of the period, used much as we now use Worcestershire or fish sauce, to add savory depth without announcing itself as anchovy.