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Pompano, Milanaise
Trim off fins and wipe with a damp cloth two very fresh pompano of one and a quarter pounds each. Make light crisscross incisions on both sides of each, place them on a deep dish with juice of a lemon, one teaspoon chopped parsley, two tablespoons olive oil, one teaspoon salt and half teaspoon paprika. Repeatedly turn the pompano in seasoning and let infuse for one hour, turning once in a while, then lift up and roll lightly in grated Parmesan cheese. Heat two tablespoons leaf lard in a black frying pan, place the pompanos in one beside another, gently fry them for six minutes on each side, dress on a dish and serve with Italian sauce separately.
A straightforward pan-fried whole fish with a marinade and a cheese coating. The two things that decide whether it works are the freshness of the fish and keeping the Parmesan from scorching.
- The fishTwo whole pompano of about 1 1/4 lb each; the recipe asks only that the fins be trimmed and the fish wiped with a damp cloth, so it assumes fish already cleaned, cooked whole. Pompano is a Gulf and South Atlantic fish sold mainly in Florida and Louisiana markets; whole trout, black bass or small snapper of the same weight behaves similarly in the pan.
- Why the crisscross cutsThe shallow slashes let the marinade reach the flesh and keep the skin from curling as it hits the fat. Cut through skin and just into the flesh, not to the bone.
- Marinade timingOne hour in lemon, oil, parsley, salt and paprika is enough. Longer and the acid begins to firm and whiten the surface flesh, which then dries out in the pan.
- Parmesan coatingBlot the fish before rolling it in the cheese or the coating will clump. Grated Parmesan burns faster than breadcrumbs, so keep the fat at a steady medium rather than smoking hot, and do not move the fish until it releases on its own.
- Leaf lardRendered fat from around the pig's kidneys, prized for its mild, neutral flavour. Ordinary lard, clarified butter or a neutral oil all work; whole butter will brown too fast under the cheese.
- "A black frying pan"Cast iron or a heavy blued steel skillet, i.e. a plain black-iron pan rather than a tinned or copper one. Use one wide enough that the two fish are not touching, or fry them in succession.
- Cooking timeSix minutes a side suits a fish of this weight in a properly heated pan; the flesh at the thickest point behind the head should come away from the bone cleanly, about 145F. A thinner fillet needs three or four minutes a side.
- Italian sauceSauce italienne: a brown sauce finished with a duxelles of mushroom and shallot, chopped lean ham, white wine and herbs. Make it before the fish and hold it warm, since the fried fish will not wait.
- YieldTwo generous servings, one whole fish each, or four if you fillet the cooked fish at the table.
"Milanaise" in the classical hotel repertoire means a coating that includes grated Parmesan, and by extension anything that nods to Lombardy's use of cheese in a fried crust; the same convention gives us veal cutlet milanaise. Applying it to pompano is often said to be characteristic of the cosmopolitan American restaurant kitchens of the early twentieth century, which took a fish landed off Florida and the Gulf coast and dressed it in a French vocabulary with an Italian epithet. Pompano was, and remains, among the most expensive fish in the American market, prized for firm, fatty flesh that fries and grills without falling apart, and it is traditionally associated with New Orleans and New York luxury menus. The insistence on "two very fresh pompano" is not a flourish.