In the early days, it was a way of selling an unfamiliar product to a transplanted audience, just as red wine from Modesto used to be called Burgundy and blue cheese from Petaluma Roquefort. That is only a term of, shall we say, commercial convenience. In fact, though we call petrale a sole, it is not. Petrale is the best West Coast substitute for any of those. The French culinary lexicon is full of names for sole filets poached and garnished in different ways. There are dishes more complicated than this, but none that taste better. If it’s not, wait 20 or 30 seconds more and try again.įrying in butter makes a difference in flavor, but if your conscience won’t allow it, peanut oil or corn oil will work well too. If it’s hot enough, you’ll hear a delicious sizzling sound. It’s easy enough to check: Just touch a corner of the breaded food to the fat. If it’s not, the coating will soak up all the oil and wind up gloppy and unappetizing. The other trick is to make sure the fat is hot enough before you add the food. That’s a bit too much like rubbing my belly and patting my head at the same time for me, so I just resign myself to having to wash my hands as soon as I’m done. The pros use just one hand for dipping in the flour, egg wash and bread crumbs, leaving the other free (and clean) to press the coating into place and transfer the food to the fryer. It’s a three-step process: flour, egg wash and bread crumbs. That will absorb any surface moisture and ensure a good bond with the egg wash and bread crumbs. To make sure the surface is good and dry, you need to dredge the fish in flour. ![]() You’ll just wind up with slightly bigger clumps in the pan. The best glue is an egg wash - just a whole egg and a little water beaten smooth with a fork.īut it doesn’t matter how much egg wash you use, the crumbs still won’t stick if the surface of the filet is wet. You need something to make the bread crumbs stick. The first thing you need to know is that there’s more to breading than bread crumbs. You wind up with chunks of coating floating in the fat and nothing left sticking to the fish. If you’re doing it right, it’s messy, and if you’re doing it wrong, it’s awful. It was incredible with a 2001 Clos du Val Chardonnay, one of the crisper California whites.īreading food for frying is one of those things that makes some people a little nuts. I served it last weekend with some tender little turnips that I’d braised with minced shallots. Simple as it is, this is a dish to swoon over. The next step I’d recommend is breading it and pan-frying it in butter. ![]() Once you’ve got the taste in your mouth, you can move on to more complicated recipes. In the case of petrale, brush it with a little butter, broil it and serve it with lemon wedges on the side. The first time you fix it, start on the bottom, most basic, rung to best appreciate the flavor. They are at their most plentiful from January through March.Īs with any other great ingredient, there is a ladder of preparation you should follow. Though it is available year-round, the fish, primarily caught from Monterey north, have moved into shallower waters for spawning and are practically volunteering to be caught. And call me a wine geek, but I think there’s a subtle minerality to the flavor. ![]() The flesh is fine-textured and delicately nutty. There are other regional seafood specialties that are equally compelling in their own way and in their own time - Dungeness crab in dead winter, wild salmon in the spring, fresh sardines, squid, sand dabs and anchovies whenever they’re running.īut although other fish may compare with petrale, none surpass it. But on the California dinner plate, petrale is king. It may be true that in the eyes of God, all soles are equal.
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