Bonjour!

Ok, this is almost the extend of my knowledge of French.  It is such a beautiful language and yet so scary when it appears in the name of a recipe, don't you think?  It sounds complicated, so it must be - right?  And here comes the funny bit:  I am finding that more often than not, it is actually not that hard!  Sure, there are plenty of recipes that need a lot of skill and will only be perfected after much training but there are others that just sound difficult.

Trout meuniere...

Take "sole meuniere", for example - I heard the name and ran for the hills.  Not that it didn't sound tasty but I didn't have a clue what it meant or what was involved and so I was never going to cook it.  Until now, that is, because I actually bothered looking up the meaning and reading the recipe.  A "meuniere" is a female miller or wife of a miller and in this dish it basically just means that the fish (sole) is covered in seasoned flour (hence the miller bit) before being cooked in plenty of butter which then forms the basis for the sauce.  To me that does sound quite a lot easier.

I cooked trout meuniere because that's the fish I could get hold off and we served it with broccoli, crispy potato cubes and a creamy mustard sauce (which I unfortunately forgot to take a picture of).  We loved it and I will definitely make this again.  It was surprisingly quick to make as the fish only needed frying for a total of 6 minutes - talk about fast food!

And so, as promised, here is the recipe for a quick and easy dinner...

Sole or Trout Meuniere (serves 2)

Ingredients:
2 sole or trout filets (total 260g)
150g plain flour
1 heaped tsp dried thyme
salt & pepper
2 tbsp butter
2 tsp mustard
2 tbsp double cream

Method:

1. Mix the flour with the thyme, salt & pepper.
2. Pat the fish dry, then cover it on both sides with the seasoned flour.
3. Heat a large saucepan to a medium heat and add the butter.
4. When the butter starts to foam, place the fish in the pan flesh side down and cook for 3 minutes.  (I used my kitchen timer for this).
5. After 3 minutes, carefully turn the fish over and cook the other side for 3 minutes also.
6. Remove the fish from the pan and cover with foil to keep warm.
7. Add the mustard and cream to the pan and simmer for a couple of minutes - if the sauce is too thick, add a little water or milk.
8. Adjust the seasoning if necessary and then serve with the fish.

I cooked broccoli and crispy cubed potatoes to go with this - for the crispy cubes, simply preheat the oven to 200C and cut a handful of raw, peeled potatoes into small cubes. Place on a (preferably non-stick) baking sheet, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with oil.  Cook for approximately 30 minutes, turning occasionally, adding more oil if needed.  

Alternative sauce:  instead of the mustard & cream, add the juice of half a lemon and 1 tsp of capers and pour the sauce over the fish, serving immediately.


(Recipe adapted from rickandlynne.com)