TABELIAAUTHENTIC RECIPE
Sole MeunièreDover Sole with Brown Butter
- Total
- 24 hr 55 min
- Difficulty
- ★★★☆☆
- Serves
- 2 servings
- Prep 20 min
- Cook 35 min
- Rest 24 hr
Dover sole, stripped of both dark and white skin, is dusted with flour, fried golden in clarified butter and served with brown butter. Keep the frying butter from browning and cook the thickest flesh through to the bone.
AUTHENTICITY SCORE
Authenticity Score
This is the standard recipe, exactly as it’s made where it comes from — the highest Authenticity Score possible. Substituting ingredients changes this score; the app shows exactly how, ingredient by ingredient.
Ingredients (2 servings)
100Authenticity- Whole frozen Dover sole2 fishAbout 400 g each. Buy raw whole gutted, skin-on Dover sole (Solea solea). Thaw in the refrigerator for 24 hours.
- Fine salt4 g3g before frying and 1g to finish.
- Ground white pepper0.5 gFor finishing.
- Plain cake flour20 gDust the fish and shake off the excess. Use plain soft-wheat cake flour without added starch or leavening.
- Unsalted butter for clarifying60 gFor frying; clarify and use about 40g.
- Neutral vegetable oil10 mlFor frying.
- Unsalted butter for browning40 gFor the finishing brown butter.
- Lemon0.5 lemonsSqueeze about 15 ml juice. Use unwaxed fruit when the peel is needed; wash before peeling.
- Flat-leaf parsley5 gFinely chop the leaves.
Method
Thaw the frozen Dover sole in the refrigerator
- 1 Place 2 frozen Dover sole on a tray, cover with plastic wrap and thaw in the refrigerator for 24 hours.
Ready when
Continue when the fish can be bent by hand and no frozen core remains.
Remove both skins and trim the fins
- 1 Lay the fish dark side up, make a shallow cut in the skin at the base of the tail and lift an edge with your fingers.
- 2 Hold the tail with a towel, grasp the lifted dark skin and pull it off firmly from tail to head.
- 3 Turn the fish white side up. Make another shallow cut through the skin at the base of the tail, lift an edge and pull the white skin from tail toward head while holding the tail with a towel.
- 4 Trim the fins along both sides close to the flesh with scissors.
- 5 Check the existing cleaned belly cavity near the head for any remaining dark membrane, remove it and briefly rinse the cavity under cold running water.
- 6 Pat dry with paper towels and distribute 3g salt over both sides.
Ready when
Continue when both skins are cleanly removed without tearing the flesh.
Tips
If the skin slips, a little salt on your fingertips helps your grip.
Clarify the butter
- 1 Melt the 60g unsalted frying butter in a small saucepan over low heat and skim off the white foam with a spoon.
- 2 Pour only the clear fat into a small dish, leaving the white milk solids at the bottom; you should have about 40g.
- 3 Meanwhile(While melting the butter) Warm the oven to 80°C and put in 1 holding plate and 2 serving plates.
Ready when
Continue when the fat in the dish is clear yellow without white cloudiness.
Tips
Clarified butter has its milk solids removed and therefore resists scorching during longer frying over moderately high heat.
Dust with flour and fry each fish for 6–7 minutes per side
- 1 Lightly dust 1 fish with cake flour, hold by the tail and shake off excess flour.
- 2 Heat half the clarified butter and 5ml vegetable oil over medium-high heat in an oval fish pan at least 34cm long. Add the fish with the former dark-skin side down.
- 3 Cook without moving for 6–7 minutes, turn with 2 spatulas and cook for another 6–7 minutes.
- 4 Transfer the cooked fish to the plate in the 80°C oven to keep warm.
- 5 Wipe the pan with paper towels and fry the remaining 1 fish in the same way.
Ready when
Continue when both sides are evenly golden and a knife tip inserted in the thickest flesh reveals white, opaque flesh all the way to the bone.
Caution
Moving the fish before turning can detach the flour coating and break the flesh.
Add lemon and parsley, then foaming brown butter
- 1 Place 1 sole on each warmed serving plate. Divide 15ml lemon juice, 1g finishing salt, 0.3g white pepper and 5g chopped parsley evenly between them.
- 2 Wipe the pan with paper towels and heat the 40g finishing butter over medium heat to make beurre noisette: foaming, hazelnut-brown butter.
- 3 Pour over the fish while still foaming and take immediately to the table.
Ready when
The dish is ready when the butter is light brown and nutty-smelling and its bubbles burst over the fish.
Caution
Burning the butter until black makes it bitter.
About this dish
In November 1948, newly arrived in France, Julia Child ate oysters and sole meunière at La Couronne in Rouen, Normandy. The cookery writer who later introduced French cuisine to American households recalled the dish as part of her first meal in France.
Meunière is translated as “in the manner of the miller’s wife,” and the word traces back to the Latin molinarius, meaning miller. A fish dish coated with flour and cooked in butter bears the miller’s name.
In 2023, France and the Netherlands each accounted for 27% of sole landings in the EU. In 2025, at the request of French fishers, the minimum landing size for sole in the eastern English Channel off Normandy was raised to 25cm.
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