Home › The World's Kitchen › Fried Pompano, Horly
Fried Pompano, Horly
Lift up the filets from two medium, fresh pompano of one pound each. Skin them, season with a teaspoon salt and half a teaspoon pepper, roll in flour, then dip in beaten egg and roll in fresh bread crumbs. Arrange in a frying basket and fry in boiling fat for ten minutes, lift up, drain, dress on a hot dish with a folded napkin, decorate with six quarters lemon, a little parsley greens, and serve with one gill hot tomato sauce separately.
A straightforward breaded deep-fry from the classic French repertoire, with one number in it that should not be followed as printed.
- The frying timeSkinned pompano fillets from a one-pound fish run about half an inch at the thickest point and are cooked through in three to four minutes at 350-375F. Ten minutes will leave the crumb coating dark and the flesh dry and cottony.
- "Boiling fat"Fat does not boil; the phrase means fat hot enough that a crumb dropped in sizzles briskly and rises at once. Use a thermometer and hold 350-375F, and let the oil come back to temperature between batches.
- A gillHalf a cup, here of hot tomato sauce served separately in a sauceboat rather than under the fish, which would soften the crust.
- PompanoFlorida pompano is still sold but is expensive and seasonal. Any firm, mild flatfish or small round fish filleted thin will take the same treatment: sole, flounder, black sea bass, snapper.
- The breading sequenceFlour, egg, crumbs is the standard anglaise. The recipe specifies fresh crumbs rather than dried.
- The folded napkinA period plating convention: the linen absorbed drips and kept the fish from sitting in its own fat. A wire rack over a sheet pan does the same work, and the fish can go straight onto a warm plate.
- SeasoningA teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of pepper for roughly a pound of fillets is on the assertive side but reasonable for fried fish; season the flour as well as the fish if you want it even.
- YieldTwo one-pound fish give four fillets, enough for two generous or three modest servings as a main course.
"Horly" is a variant spelling of Orly, one of the standard escoffier-era names for fish fillets that are coated, deep-fried and sent out with tomato sauce apart. Purists reserved the name for fillets marinated in lemon and oil and dipped in a light frying batter, so this crumbed version is the more workaday hotel treatment of the idea. That it is built on pompano says something about the American market the book was written for: pompano was the prestige fish of the Gulf, shipped north on ice to hotel dining rooms. The folded napkin, the six lemon quarters and the sauce in a separate boat are all service conventions of the same dining room.