Monday, April 8, 2013

April 7, 2013 Baked Herb Stuffed Petrale Sole with greens and peas in cream sauce on egg noodles

April 7, 2013 Baked Herb Stuffed Petrale Sole with greens and peas in cream sauce on egg noodles

 When I went to Ta Lin on Saturday I bought a lovely fresh 2.5 lb. petrale sole.  Since we went out to dinner on Saturday, on Sunday evening Suzette looked at several recipes and we finally decided to bake the fish in lemon juice, butter, herbs and a bit of white wine and then use the stock for a cream sauce.
I started by boiling about 1 lb. of frozen green peas in an 4 quart pot of water that would later be used to boil the egg noodles.
When the peas were re-hydrated and cooked, I put the peas in a bowl and covered them with saran.
Then we went to the garden to see what herbs we had available.  We picked sprigs of parsley, tarragon and garlic greens and then we picked about 1 cup of kale leaves, after which I cut off the head of the fish so the fish would fit into a baking dish.


I chopped the herbs and Suzette mashed the herbs into 2 oz. of butter and laid a layer of kale leaves on the bottom of the ceramic baking dish and then the fish and then coated the fish with the compounded butter.
It took about 45 minutes to bake the fish at 350˚.  While the fish was cooking we boiled the head of the fish in about three cups of water, so it would produce broth and started the egg noodles boiling.

When 30 minutes of cooking time had elapsed, Suzette chopped about 1/3 cup of onion and I chopped about ¼ cup of garlic and garlic greens.  After sautéing the onion and garlic greens in butter and olive oil for a few minutes until they softened, Suzette added 2 Tbsp. flour and cooked that into a roux.  Then Suzette strained the fish stock and added the approximately 1 ½ cups of fish stock and in a few more minutes, when the fish came out of the oven, added some of its sauce to make the cream sauce.  Then she added the peas and more kale to the cream sauce and cooked the sauce and vegetables for a few minutes to heat everything.

I fetched a bottle of 2011Reserve des Cleons Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Sur Lie (Trader Joe’s) from the basement and poured it. 

I then boned the fish and placed a layer of fish on top of the egg noodles and then Suzette spooned the cream sauce with greens and peas onto the fish and noodles.  There is a unique way of de-boning a flat fish.  First you take a fish knife or curved object and pull the rows of bones at the fish’s extremities away from the body, then you can lift the filet usually with a spatula under the large central bone and ribs to release the bottom side of the fish from the skeleton.  What you left with is the bottom side exposed with the top side removed to the side and theoretically, no bones.   
 

The dish was delicious and the mild, dry wine did not interfere with the delicate flavors of the fish and vegetables, but it did not have any character.

The all-important bottom of the wine’s label stated, Mis en Bouteille a Mouzillon par lacheteau 44194 Vallet – France, which means to me that the grapes were grown at one or more locations and then sent to be processed in Mouzillon for Lecheteau, which is a large bulk wine production exporter of wine.  The back label confirmed this when it disclosed that that the wine was shipped by Lacheteau, S.A. F44194.  When the mail code of the location of the production facility is the only address given and no code for the growing facility given, it is a bad sign.  I recall that the harshly sweet Vouvray also was processed and shipped by lacheteau, so this is a similar situation.      

Bon Appétit     

 

 

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