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Fresh Mackerel, Meuniere
Cut off fins and head from a fresh three-pound mackerel, split it in two through back and remove spinal bone. Season with one teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper, lightly baste with milk and roll it in flour. Heat one tablespoon melted butter in a black frying pan, add the fish and gently fry for six minutes on each side. Dress on a hot dish, add one-half ounce butter to the pan, toss on the fire until it attains a nice brown colour, squeeze in the juice of half a lemon, adding half teaspoon finely chopped parsley, lightly toss, then pour it over the fish and serve.
A straightforward pan-fry finished with brown butter. The only real technical demands are a dry fish surface and butter that browns without burning.
- The hinge: butter colourThe finishing butter must reach a nutmeg brown and no further. Half an ounce is one tablespoon, and in a hot pan it goes from foaming to burnt in well under a minute; pull it off the heat the moment it smells nutty and add the lemon juice, which stops the browning.
- "Baste with milk"This means dip or brush the fish with milk so the flour adheres, not spoon liquid over it during cooking. Pat the fish dry first, then milk, then flour, and shake off the excess or the coating turns pasty.
- "A black frying pan"A cast-iron or heavy carbon-steel skillet, seasoned. It holds heat well enough that adding a cool fish does not stall the pan, which is what makes fish stick.
- Fat quantityOne tablespoon of butter for a three-pound fish is thin. Add a spoonful of neutral oil to raise the smoke point and keep the milk solids from blackening during twelve minutes of frying.
- TimingSix minutes a side suits a whole split three-pound mackerel; a pair of one-pound fish or ordinary fillets need three to four minutes on the skin side and a minute or two on the flesh. Cook to just opaque at the thickest point.
- Buying the fishMackerel spoils faster than most fish because of its oil content. It should smell of nothing but sea and the flesh should be firm and iridescent; use it the day you buy it.
- YieldA three-pound mackerel, split, serves two generously or three at a table with other courses.
Meunière means "miller's wife" in French, a name generally traced to the light dusting of flour that defines the method — fish floured, fried in butter, and finished with browned butter, lemon and parsley. The formula is one of the workhorses of the classical French repertoire and was applied to whatever came to hand: sole in Paris, trout in the mountains, and here oily mackerel, a cheap and abundant Atlantic fish whose richness stands up to the acid of the lemon.