Friday, September 25, 2009

Sole with Orange Brown Butter

This little piggy went to market...

Nothing makes people fearful like fear.

This little piggy stayed home...

Because he wasn't feeling too well

This little piggy had roast beef...

I went to CC2's parent welcome back to school event last night and the consistent topic of conversation was H1N1, aka Swine Flu. Everyone, from teachers to administrators talked about Swine Flu. They've established new protocols to deal with kids missing classes for up to a week. There's a new online system to keep everyone up to date on assignments and workload. At every turn parents were asked to keep their students home at the first sign of illness.

And this little piggy went "cough, cough, cough" all the way home.

Let's remember one thing folks: So far, swine flu has been much, much tamer than the regular flu. You're much more likely to have a "terminal" case of regular flu than you are of Swine Flu. So please, let's all just relax a bit. Just do what your mother and grandma always told you, wash your hands, cover your mouth when you sneeze or cough, get plenty of rest, drink plenty of fluids and have a healthy diet.

See, it all comes back to eating well. You wouldn't put crappy gas into your car, so don't do the same to yourself. So today let's eat well. Let's have some fish, after all it's brain food and if you're sick missing work or school you'll need all the brain help you can get. Sole with Orange Brown Butter is a little messy but very tasty. Don't worry about the butter, just spoon some onto the fish. Enjoy...


Sole with Orange Brown Butter
adapted by Crabby from epicurious.com

1 pound sole filets (catfish and tilapia are great substitutes)
Salt & Pepper
1 cup flour for dusting
3 TBSP cooking oil
8 TBSP (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 medium shallot minced
1/4 cup orange juice
1 TBSP freshly squeezed lemon juice


Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees.

Place flour onto a large dinner plate.

Season the filets with salt and pepper.

Heat half of the oil over medium-high heat. While the oil is heating dredge the fish in the flour. Shake off any excess flour. Gently place the fish into the hot oil and saute on the first side for 3 minutes or until golden brown. Gently flip the fish and saute for 1 to 2 minutes or until just done.

Transfer the fish to an oven safe platter and place in the warm oven.

Add the remaining oil and butter and cook over high heat until the butter starts to foam. Add the shallot and cook until golden brown and the butter has taken on a pale brown color, about 1 minute. Add the orange juice and cook an additional minute. Add the lemon juice, when the butter foams again remove the sauce from the heat. Adjust the seasoning.

Place a piece of fish on each plate and drizzle with the butter sauce. Serve immediately.


The messy part of this meal is the flour dredging. The tough part of the cooking is standing there and watching the butter brown. Fight the urge to turn down the heat, you want this to get perilously close to burning. You want that nutty buttery flavor on the fish.

OK crablings, cover your mouths while eating. Wash your hands and remember, you can do it, you can cook.

2 comments:

recipes2share said...

We have the same instructions here in France...but with an extra problem - our head instructed us not to shake hands and no kisses. If this happened France would grind to a halt...no meeting can take place without these wonderful greetings - it makes France French!!

WineWizardBob said...

Brown butter, yum. Ranks right up there with my favorite chef who says. " First melt a stick of butter" for just about any recipe.

One of my most favorite white wine producers is Yves Cuilleron from the Rhone Valley of France. Expensive but worth it. After all, he still has the grapes crushed by human foot. Take that you swine flu you.

Wine is antiseptic. While tasting barrel sample wines in Burgundy,if there is any wine left in your tasting glass you pour it back into the barrel, regardless of your sniffling condition.