Fried Sole

Ingredients

• a sole
• floured
• the egg must be thoroughly beaten up
• some very fine bread-crumbs
• plenty of hot fat

Method

1. 1

   First, dry the fish thoroughly.

2. 2

   Flour it to ensure it is dry.

3. 3

   Beat the egg well before using.

4. 4

   Use dry and fine bread-crumbs.

5. 5

   Sprinkle the egged fish with fine bread raspings.

6. 6

   Fry in hot fat until cooked through, ensuring it does not dry out.

7. 7

   Drain on a cloth and serve.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Practical home cookery (1906) by A. G. Payne, page 3. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

floured. This is done in order to ensure its being dry, just as a baby’s neck is powdered for a similar purpose after being dried with a towel. Next, the egg must be thoroughly beaten up before it is used ; otherwise, the white of the egg especially is apt to slip off, leaving those bald patches we have mentioned. Again, the bread-crumbs must be dry and fine. It is no use to attempt to use bread-crumbs made from new bread, which will be necessarily coarse. Now, we will suppose these conditions complied with — say a sole has been carefully dried and floured, has been carefully egged over, and then covered with some very fine bread-crumbs. Most cooks will say : “ Well, then fry it in plenty of hot fat, allow it to drain on a napkin, and that’s all.” Wait a minute. If you have a frying-pan two feet in diameter, filled with boiling fat three inches deep, this would do very well. A few minutes would suffice to cook the sole a nice colour, “all over ahke.” But have you this ? Probably, to start with, the fish is a trifle longer than the frying-pan. The fat is a quarter of an inch deep, and won’t cover the fish. How, under these very common circumstances, will you get your fish to look nice ? Go to the baker’s at once, and order in as follows (it does not cost anything) — a bag of light-brown bread raspings, of about the colour you would use for a ham. Always have some by you — they keep almost for ever, and, as I have said, the baker gives them away. Take some of these, and make them fine — a rolhng-pin and a little patience are sufficient for the purpose. Take these fine raspings and sprinkle the sole — we left it egged and bread-crumbed well on both sides — lo, and behold ! the sole, even before it is put in the frying- pan, is all that is desirable in the way of colour. The THE FRYING-PAN. 13 weight is off your mind ; all you now have to do is to cook it so that it is done through without being dried up. Now for this purpose you must have a certain depth of lard or dripping, or it cannot be done. Properly speaking, there ought to be enough fat to cover the fish. However, it is no use writing for things as they ought to be ; it is more practical to write for things as they are. You must have enough fat at least to dip the sole in. Of course, it is impossible to draw any exact line between a single drop of fat and a gallon. What we mean is, it is no use to try to fry fish in a fr^dng-pan that has had a little piece of butter put in it, just sufficient to prevent the fish from sticking. A properly fried fish is one which has been boiled in fat. If, therefore, you have not sufficient to cover the sole, it will be necessary to cook one side first, and then the other. With regard to the time it takes, this, of course, altogether depends on the thickness of the fish. If you have enough fat to cover the fish, the very largest sole would not take more than ten minutes. The mistake generally made in frying fish is to over- cook it. A properly fried sole

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.