Last Updated on January 5, 2019
The Simplest Ready Meal – Lemon Sole
My life is not always like this. I really am very happy to be living off the fish I was sent from Delish Fish – not only is it all great quality, but I have a whole range of types of fish to try. Lemon Sole is a flat fish that isn’t really a sole at all, it’s a flounder and, rather prosaically, it’s a bottom feeder (that means it eats from food found at the bottom of the ocean floor – nothing more sinister). It’s not often I get such a treat and for me, the best way to enjoy fish is cooked very simply.
This is a pretty classic way of serving flat fish – sole, plaice or flounders can all be cooked and served with herb butter and a little lemon. If you have the whole fish and you don’t have a large enough frying pan, you can also grill the fish, brushing it with a little bit of melted butter first. Either way, you should also remember to cook this type of fish presentation side down first – so, if you have fillets with skin on one side, cook flesh side down first then turn to cook the side which has skin. Why? Well, as the fish cooks it will become very flaky. You want the presentation side to be prettiest and the skin also helps to hold the cooked fish together.
Apart from remembering to cook it the right way round, really this is as easy as most ready meals to prepare.
- 1-2 Lemon Sole Fillets depending on size
- 3 teaspoons Unsalted Butter
- 1 pinch Seasalt
- 1 teaspoon Chives chopped
- 1 teaspoon Tarragon chopped
- 1 teaspoon Parsley chopped
- 1 teaspoon Dill chopped
- 1/4 Lemon
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Take 2 teaspoons of the butter and mix well with all the chopped herbs and the salt. Using unsalted butter and adding salt helps to break down the herbs a little bit
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Heat the remaining teaspoon of butter in a frying pan till foaming
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Place the fish in the pan, presentation side down and cook for 2 minutes
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Turn the fish and add the herb butter. Cook for a further 2 minutes or so till the fish is flaky and the butter melted
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Serve with lemon pieces on the side and season with salt and pepper to taste
You can vary the herbs in the herb butter depending on what you have available and what you like. Traditionally you should include chervil, but I don’t have any…and, I’ve made this with just flat-leafed parsley when nothing else was on hand. If you don’t have ANY fresh herbs, substitute dried but make the butter up a few hours in advance so that the herbs get a chance to soften a bit.
A simple way to prepare lemon sole
I don’t know why more people don’t eat fish too. But I suspect that some people are a bit frightened. If it doesn’t come in a packet with instructions then some people won’t bother. What a shame. This looks and sounds amazing!
I think the better the basic ingredients the simpler the cooking can be. And with good fish, you really don’t need more than a bit of herb butter to make it perfect!
Interested to know that SOLE is actually a FLOUNDER. You then go on to say that being a ‘ground feeder .. is sinister!’ Please explain to the uninitiated why you are recommending a ‘ground feeder’ which you appear to say is a bad thing! What is WRONG with being a ground feeder. Your article is contradictory!
not in the least contradictory…sorry it wasn’t clear to you, but if you check, you will see I wrote ‘bottom feeder’, not ground feeder. Now, while that means ‘feeds from the bottom of the ocean floor’ to me at least it sounds just a little rude…but perhaps you don’t share my schoolgirl sense of humour;)
oh, the reason it is a good thing rather than bad is because in general bottom feeders are not scavengers, so unlike mackerel for instance, they eat fresh, living foods…not things rotting on the surface of the sea. That means they stay fresh longer and don’t need to be gutted so quickly as their intestines are not full of junk. Please excuse my unprosaic description, I learnt this from the cornish chefs at Boscastle food festival (Paul Harwood and Nathan Outlaw).
Hi there. Poor old mackerel gets it all the time! In fact, the mackerel is one of the ‘cleanest’ fish you will find in the sea! They eat small fish. However, bottom feeding fish like cod (and sole) actually hoover up all sorts, including worms which bury themselves in the flesh of the fish. These are often cut out before selling but something new you can see some in the flesh of fish for sale. What it is that makes mackerel have a shorter fridge-life is the amount of oil in the fish. Oily fish tends to decompose quicker than less oily fish.