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French · IV The Method

Cuisson à la meunière

France, classical kitchen

‹ The Method

I

Origin

The meunière is a method of the classical French kitchen, applied to sole, trout and other whole or filleted fish. Its name, la meunière, the miller's wife, refers to the coating of flour in which the fish is cooked. It belongs to the repertoire of the fish cook and is taught in the Roux brothers' books as a foundation for flat and round fish alike.

II

Description

The fish is seasoned, passed through flour, shaken free of the excess and cooked in clarified butter, or butter with a little oil, in a pan hot enough to colour the flour to a pale gold. Classically it is applied to Dover sole (Solea solea), brown trout (Salmo trutta) and fillets of lemon sole (Microstomus kitt). The fish is then turned out, dressed with lemon juice, chopped parsley and beurre noisette foamed in the pan, and served at once with slices of peeled lemon.

III

The Thread

—The Italian dish shares the floured fish cooked in butter and finished with lemon and parsley, the miller's wife again lending her name. The difference lies in the regional habit of olive oil or a lighter butter and in the lack of the French insistence on a hazelnut-brown butter poured over the fish. Italian
—Whole trout is seasoned and floured or dusted and fried so that a thin crust seals the flesh, the same principle as the meunière. The Portuguese version is cooked in lard or oil and often with cured ham, and carries no butter sauce. Portuguese
—The German and Austrian dish is the same technique under a translated name: the trout is floured, fried in butter and served with lemon, parsley and browned butter. It keeps the whole fish and the plain presentation, where the French kitchen extends the method to fillets of sole and other flat fish. German
IV

Flavour Context

The meunière is eaten with boiled or steamed potatoes, pommes vapeur, or with plain buttered spinach, which take up the browned butter without competing with it. It is drunk with a dry white of good acidity, such as a Chablis or a Muscadet sur lie, because the acidity cuts the richness of the butter and answers the lemon, while the mineral note suits the delicate flesh of the fish.

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