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Kingfish Saute, Meuniere
Draw, trim and wipe well two very fresh kingfish one and a half pounds each. Have two tablespoons milk on a plate with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon white pepper, repeatedly turn the fish in the mixed milk and then roll in flour.
Heat two tablespoons leaf lard in a frying pan, add the fish and cook for five minutes on each side. Set in the oven for ten minutes. Remove, dress on a hot dish and squeeze the juice of half lemon over. Sprinkle a teaspoon chopped parsley over, remove all the fat from the pan, add half ounce butter; toss the butter in the pan until a nice brown colour, pour over the fish and serve.
A straight meunière: floured fish fried in fat, finished in the oven, then dressed with lemon, parsley and browned butter. The only tricky part is the butter at the end.
- The hinge is the panPour off every drop of the frying fat before the butter goes in, or you are browning lard as much as butter and the finish tastes of the fryer. Wipe the pan with paper if flour has scorched in it, then melt the butter and swirl until it smells nutty and turns hazelnut brown -- roughly a minute over medium heat. Past that it goes bitter in seconds.
- What kingfish means hereIn an American book of this period kingfish is usually the northern kingfish or whiting, a small drum sold whole at one to two pounds. Any firm, lean whole fish of that size works the same way: whiting, small snapper, branzino, red mullet, trout.
- Leaf lardRendered fat from around the pig's kidneys, prized because it is mild and takes high heat. Ordinary lard, clarified butter or a neutral oil will do; do not use whole butter for the frying, since it will burn before the fish is done.
- The milk dipTwo tablespoons is not enough to soak in -- it is a coating, seasoned with the salt and pepper, so the flour will adhere. Flour the fish immediately before it goes into the fat; if it stands, the coating turns to paste and slides off.
- Oven finishThe book gives no temperature. A moderate oven, in the region of 350F, suits the ten minutes given and will carry the heat through a fish this size. Judge it by the flesh at the thickest point behind the head lifting cleanly from the backbone.
- Weights and measuresHalf an ounce of butter is one tablespoon. Two tablespoons of lard is a shallow film in a large pan -- enough for a fish this size only if the pan is heavy and hot; add more if it looks dry.
- YieldTwo whole 1.5 lb fish serve two generously or four as a first course. Have the plates hot; browned butter congeals fast on cold china.
Meunière means "miller's wife," generally taken as French shorthand for fish dredged in flour before it hits the pan, and the sequence here -- flour, fry, lemon, parsley, brown butter -- is the classic form. What makes the entry American is the fish: kingfish was a cheap, abundant inshore catch along the mid-Atlantic coast. Finishing in the oven rather than lengthening the frying frees the range top and lets the interior cook without further colouring the crust; the browned butter, made separately in the emptied pan, is what the French call beurre noisette.