Trout Meuniere and Syracuse Salt Potatoes
Sep. 25th, 2010 11:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coraaNo pics this time, because, uh, we ate it too fast. Which does say something, I guess!
Fish a la meuniére literally means "fish in the style of the female miller," sometimes interpreted "miller's wife:" simply put, it's fish rolled in flour and then fried in butter, then sauced with butter, lemon and parsley. Named, I guess, on the principle that the miller has plenty of flour. Anyway, it's a simple sauce. As I understand it, it can be made with pretty much any kind of fish, although I would stick to milder-flavored fish as opposed to, say, tuna. We used rainbow trout, partly because it's generally considered to be sustainable.
Anyway, the recipe itself was easy. The difficult part was actually filleting the trout. (I usually buy my fish pre-filleted, but I'm experimenting more with breaking down whole fish.) It took some poking and experimenting, but I got the fish filleted, and only one piece (of four) was noticeably bony. Yay!
Trout Meuniére
The recipe is necessarily fuzzy on amounts, because how much butter you need will depend on your pan, how much flour will depend on your fish, how much lemon will depend on your taste, et cetera. I'll try to provide guidelines, though.
2 trout fillets* (or other fairly mild-tasting fish of your choice)**
salt
flour
unsalted butter
pepper
lemons
chopped fresh parsley, about a handful***
* - Technically these should be skinless, or you should slice the skin off. That said, after my only-semi-ept filleting, the trout was sufficiently fragile from handling that I was afraid to try to skin it, so I left the skin on and it didn't seem to hurt anything. Mileage may vary.
** - Actually I bet you could do this with thin pieces of chicken breast, or boneless pork chop, or, for that matter, tofu as well. Any protein that can be pan-fried and isn't too strongly flavored. Chicken or pork may take longer to cook, though.
*** - I don't think it much matters whether it's flat-leaf or curly.
Preheat the oven to 200F.
Lightly salt the trout fillets on both sides—a couple of pinches of salt per fillet should do it. If they're very large (long enough that you'd have trouble turning them, or fitting them in your skillet), split in half.
Put some flour in a wide, shallow bowl or large plate; starting with 1/3 to 1/2 cup is about right. Dredge the trout fillets and set aside on a clean, dry plate or platter. If the flour runs out, or starts to get gummy or doughy, add more flour.
Heat a skillet (big enough to hold at least one fillet at a time) over medium heat and add a knob of butter. Keep heating until the butter fully melts, foams up, and then the foam subsides. Crank the heat up to high and add the fish.
Cook fish about a minute or two per side, or until lightly browned. Remove to a plate lined with paper towels and repeat until all the fish is cooked. Place the plate in the oven to keep warm.
If the butter in the pan is any color from blonde to nutty brown, keep it. If it's dark brown or black, or smells (or tastes) bitter, it's burned; throw it out and start over by melting fresh butter. Either way, grind a little pepper into the butter, sprinkle in a little salt, then add the juice of 2-4 lemons, depending on how sour you like things. (Basically, add one lemon at a time and taste.) Keep adjusting lemon, pepper and salt until it tastes good to you. Finish with about a tablespoon of fresh butter, added to the hot pan while stirring continuously.
Remove from heat, add the parsley, and let the parsley wilt in the hot sauce.
Serve the trout with the sauce. (If you're serving the trout with a starch, save a little sauce for the starch. It is particularly delicious with potatoes.)
So I wanted some kind of starch to go with the fish, and we had some red potatoes, so. And then I remembered something I read in Cook's Illustrated (I think), a way of cooking potatoes in water that is ludicrously heavily salted. The potatoes wind up nicely seasoned rather than too salty, and with a very silky, creamy interior. So I tried it. And sure enough, it worked as directed! The potatoes ended up beautifully seasoned without being too salty, and with a smooth and creamy interior that wasn't quite like any other red potatoes I'd ever had. A bit of googling indicates that these are Syracuse Salt Potatoes, and they're very easy and very good.
Syracuse Salt Potatoes
1 1/2 cups salt
small red-skinned potatoes
There really isn't much to say here: dissolve the salt in about half a gallon of boiling water, add the potatoes, and cook half an hour, then drain and serve. The only thing to be wary of is that you should avoid breaking the skin of the potato: the more breaks and punctures the potato has, the more salt it will absorb, and the more likely it is to get too salty. Definitely do not slice or peel the potatoes before or during cooking. If you need to cut them up, do so after cooking; if you hate potato skins, slip the peels off when they're done. (I personally like potato skin, and the very thin salt crust that forms when you pull them out of the hot water is delicious.)
Traditionally this is apparently served with melted butter to dip in. I crushed the potatoes with the back of a fork and drizzled on leftover meuniére sauce instead.
Fish a la meuniére literally means "fish in the style of the female miller," sometimes interpreted "miller's wife:" simply put, it's fish rolled in flour and then fried in butter, then sauced with butter, lemon and parsley. Named, I guess, on the principle that the miller has plenty of flour. Anyway, it's a simple sauce. As I understand it, it can be made with pretty much any kind of fish, although I would stick to milder-flavored fish as opposed to, say, tuna. We used rainbow trout, partly because it's generally considered to be sustainable.
Anyway, the recipe itself was easy. The difficult part was actually filleting the trout. (I usually buy my fish pre-filleted, but I'm experimenting more with breaking down whole fish.) It took some poking and experimenting, but I got the fish filleted, and only one piece (of four) was noticeably bony. Yay!
Trout Meuniére
The recipe is necessarily fuzzy on amounts, because how much butter you need will depend on your pan, how much flour will depend on your fish, how much lemon will depend on your taste, et cetera. I'll try to provide guidelines, though.
2 trout fillets* (or other fairly mild-tasting fish of your choice)**
salt
flour
unsalted butter
pepper
lemons
chopped fresh parsley, about a handful***
* - Technically these should be skinless, or you should slice the skin off. That said, after my only-semi-ept filleting, the trout was sufficiently fragile from handling that I was afraid to try to skin it, so I left the skin on and it didn't seem to hurt anything. Mileage may vary.
** - Actually I bet you could do this with thin pieces of chicken breast, or boneless pork chop, or, for that matter, tofu as well. Any protein that can be pan-fried and isn't too strongly flavored. Chicken or pork may take longer to cook, though.
*** - I don't think it much matters whether it's flat-leaf or curly.
Preheat the oven to 200F.
Lightly salt the trout fillets on both sides—a couple of pinches of salt per fillet should do it. If they're very large (long enough that you'd have trouble turning them, or fitting them in your skillet), split in half.
Put some flour in a wide, shallow bowl or large plate; starting with 1/3 to 1/2 cup is about right. Dredge the trout fillets and set aside on a clean, dry plate or platter. If the flour runs out, or starts to get gummy or doughy, add more flour.
Heat a skillet (big enough to hold at least one fillet at a time) over medium heat and add a knob of butter. Keep heating until the butter fully melts, foams up, and then the foam subsides. Crank the heat up to high and add the fish.
Cook fish about a minute or two per side, or until lightly browned. Remove to a plate lined with paper towels and repeat until all the fish is cooked. Place the plate in the oven to keep warm.
If the butter in the pan is any color from blonde to nutty brown, keep it. If it's dark brown or black, or smells (or tastes) bitter, it's burned; throw it out and start over by melting fresh butter. Either way, grind a little pepper into the butter, sprinkle in a little salt, then add the juice of 2-4 lemons, depending on how sour you like things. (Basically, add one lemon at a time and taste.) Keep adjusting lemon, pepper and salt until it tastes good to you. Finish with about a tablespoon of fresh butter, added to the hot pan while stirring continuously.
Remove from heat, add the parsley, and let the parsley wilt in the hot sauce.
Serve the trout with the sauce. (If you're serving the trout with a starch, save a little sauce for the starch. It is particularly delicious with potatoes.)
So I wanted some kind of starch to go with the fish, and we had some red potatoes, so. And then I remembered something I read in Cook's Illustrated (I think), a way of cooking potatoes in water that is ludicrously heavily salted. The potatoes wind up nicely seasoned rather than too salty, and with a very silky, creamy interior. So I tried it. And sure enough, it worked as directed! The potatoes ended up beautifully seasoned without being too salty, and with a smooth and creamy interior that wasn't quite like any other red potatoes I'd ever had. A bit of googling indicates that these are Syracuse Salt Potatoes, and they're very easy and very good.
Syracuse Salt Potatoes
1 1/2 cups salt
small red-skinned potatoes
There really isn't much to say here: dissolve the salt in about half a gallon of boiling water, add the potatoes, and cook half an hour, then drain and serve. The only thing to be wary of is that you should avoid breaking the skin of the potato: the more breaks and punctures the potato has, the more salt it will absorb, and the more likely it is to get too salty. Definitely do not slice or peel the potatoes before or during cooking. If you need to cut them up, do so after cooking; if you hate potato skins, slip the peels off when they're done. (I personally like potato skin, and the very thin salt crust that forms when you pull them out of the hot water is delicious.)
Traditionally this is apparently served with melted butter to dip in. I crushed the potatoes with the back of a fork and drizzled on leftover meuniére sauce instead.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-09-26 07:50 am (UTC)"There was a jolly miller, and he lived by himself,
As the wheel went round he made his pelf;
One hand in the hopper, and the other in the bag,
As the wheel went round he took his grab."
no subject
Date: 2010-09-26 09:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-26 06:42 pm (UTC)