Home › The World's Kitchen › Sole, Loomis
Sole, Loomis
Carefully lift up the four filets from a three-and-a-half-pound sole and neatly skin them, then cut each filet into three slanting, equal pieces; lay them on a plate, season with half teaspoon salt and three saltspoons pepper, squeezing the juice of half a sound lemon over. Prepare a smooth hash with one branch fresh parsley, two bay leaves and a sprig of thyme; add to the fish, thoroughly mix the filets in the seasoning and keep in a cold place until required.
Place in a mortar a quarter pound of fresh cod or halibut, adding one egg yolk, two saltspoons salt, a saltspoon each cayenne pepper and grated nutmeg; pound to a pulp, then press through a sieve into a bowl. Finely chop three medium, fresh-peeled and neatly cleaned mushrooms, brown in a frying pan with a teaspoon butter for five minutes, add to the bowl with the fish force and briskly mix. With knife blade carefully spread the force on both sides of the filets, then dip the filets in beaten egg and lightly roll in bread crumbs. Thoroughly heat two tablespoons butter in a large frying pan, lay in the filets one beside another and fry for five minutes on each side. Dress on a hot dish with a folded napkin and serve with a Tartare sauce separately.
A stuffed-and-breaded fillet dish from the Delmonico's repertoire, written for a kitchen with a mortar, a fish man and a hot plate warmer. The technique survives intact; only the vocabulary and the fish supply need translating.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. So the fish seasoning is half a teaspoon salt and three-quarters teaspoon pepper, and the forcemeat takes half a teaspoon salt with a quarter teaspoon each cayenne and nutmeg.
- "A smooth hash"This is hachis — parsley, bay and thyme chopped together as finely as possible, not a cooked hash. Strip the thyme and remove the bay's central rib first, or pick the bay leaves out before frying; whole boiled bay in a breaded coating is unpleasant to bite.
- The hinge: keep the forcemeat coldPounded raw fish, egg yolk and salt form a bindable paste only while thoroughly chilled. If the mixture warms it turns loose and slides off the fillets in the pan. Chill the bowl, and let the cooked mushrooms cool completely before mixing them in.
- Mortar to food processorA quarter pound of cod or halibut pounded and sieved is exactly what a food processor does in thirty seconds. Pulse the cold fish with the yolk and seasoning, then still push it through a fine sieve — that step removes sinew and is what makes the coating smooth.
- The soleA 3.5 lb sole is a very large flatfish, and American books of this period used "sole" loosely for flounder and fluke as well as for imported Dover sole. Grey sole, lemon sole, fluke or flounder fillets work; you want about 1.25 lb of skinned fillet, cut into twelve slanting pieces.
- Frying timeTen minutes total suits a piece of fillet carrying forcemeat on both sides — the stuffing has to set through. With thin supermarket flounder, expect closer to three minutes a side over medium heat, and add clarified butter or a neutral oil to the pan so the crumbs do not blacken before the centre is done.
- MushroomsPeeling cultivated mushrooms was routine practice in kitchens of this period; modern buttons need only wiping. Cook them until the moisture has driven off entirely, or the forcemeat will be wet.
- Yield and serviceEnough for four as a main course, six as a fish course. Serving fried food on a folded napkin was common practice in restaurant service of the period, partly to absorb fat; a rack or a warm plate does the same. If you make the tartare sauce from scratch, use pasteurized eggs, since it is served uncooked.
The International Cook Book (1906) is Alexander Filippini's, and Filippini spent decades as a chef at Delmonico's in New York. "Sole, Loomis" belongs to the long list of restaurant eponyms — Lobster Newberg, Eggs Benedict, Chicken à la Keene — whose namesakes are variously contested or now unidentifiable, and this one is no exception. What the recipe does document is the French-trained brigade method as practised in American hotels: a plain fillet given body by a farce of pounded white fish and egg yolk, sieved for smoothness, then breaded and shallow-fried and sent out with a cold sauce apart. Cod and halibut are both lean and firm enough to bind without weeping.