Surprise yourself and create this classic restaurant dish easily at home. Look for a nut-brown colour in the butter (beurre noisette) before squeezing in the lemon juice to lock in the colour and flavour.
Ingredients
- For the Dover sole
- 2 whole
Dover sole, filleted and pin boned - 25g/1oz
plain flour, seasoned with salt and pepper - 25ml/1fl oz
olive oil - 50g/1¾oz unsalted
butter - 1
shallot, finely chopped - 1
lemon, juice only - 10g/ baby
capers - 2 tsp gentleman’s relish
- 2 tbsp finely chopped
parsley - 100g/3½oz
brown shrimps
- 2 whole
- For the wilted spinach
- 50g/1¾oz unsalted
butter - 50g/1¾oz baby
spinach - pinch freshly grated
nutmeg
- 50g/1¾oz unsalted
- To serve
- 1 bunch fresh
watercress - 1
lemon, peeled with spoon to remove all the pith and finely sliced to resemble flowers
- 1 bunch fresh
Preparation method
For the Dover sole, dust the fish in the seasoned flour. Heat a large frying pan and add the oil. Once hot, add the fish skin-side down and cook for a couple of minutes. Turn over and cook for a further minute.
Remove the fish from the pan and set aside to rest.
Heat the butter in a separate frying pan, add the shallots and fry for a few minutes. One it has reached the nut brown stage (or beurre noisette), add the lemon juice, capers, gentleman’s relish, parsley and shrimps and cook for a couple of minutes.
For the wilted spinach, in the same pan you fried your fish, heat the butter, add the spinach and a tablespoon of water and cook until wilted. Finish with a grating of fresh nutmeg.
To serve, place some spinach in the centre of each serving plate and top with the fish. Spoon the sauce over and around the fish. Garnish with watercress and lemon flowers.