Aishling Moore: How to make a lovely lemon sole with verde butter

Aishling Moore's recipe is inspired by childhood memories

Lemon sole herb butter, recipe by Aishling Moore: Picture Chani Anderson

My mother would often pick up a few fillets of lemon sole on a Friday in the English Market. She’d coat them in seasoned flour, pan fry them quickly, and serve them very simply with some steamed new spuds for dinner.

Lemon sole evokes a certain nostalgia in me, being one of the very first species I ate, so when available it’s always something I’ll have on my table or feature on my menu.

Thick fillets like the ones I was lucky enough to source for this weekend’s recipe are perfect for pan frying; thinner fillets require a gentler approach like baking or steaming.

When cooking for four, I like to work in batches, first searing the fish in a hot frying pan and then finishing in the oven, avoiding overcrowding the pan and ensuring everyone’s fish is ready at the same time.

This verde butter is an excellent accompaniment to any fish, great with all the beautiful flat fish available in the summer months, such as plaice, turbot and megrim but brilliant too with ling and pollock.

The verde butter is essentially a salsa verde with the olive oil swapped for butter, plus the briny addition of some gherkins.

Compound butters are usually served sliced on top of the particular protein; I like to gently warm this butter over a low heat and sauce the plate instead.

To freeze, spoon the compound butter when still at room temperature into the centre of a piece of parchment paper and shape it into a cylinder and roll tightly, twisting the ends to compress the cylinder before placing it in the freezer.

Pan-fried lemon sole with verde butter

recipe by:Aishling Moore

Lemon sole is a fabulous fish, often mistakenly considered to be in the sole family, although it in fact belongs to the same clan as plaice and halibut.

Servings

4

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• For the Verde butter

• 1 lemon

• 2 tsp capers

• 80g gherkin chopped

• 1 small onion chopped

• 2 cloves garlic minced

• 4 anchovy fillets

• 1tbsp Dijon Mustard

• ¼ tsp black pepper ground

• 1 bunch flat leaf parsley

• 454g Salted Butter diced (at room temperature)

• 1tb dill finely chopped

• 1tb chervil finely chopped

• For the lemon sole

• 400g lemon sole fillets

• 2tb rapeseed oil

• Fine sea salt

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Method

1. For the verde butter

2. Juice and zest the lemon and place in a food processor with the capers, gherkins, onion, garlic, anchovy, Dijon, black pepper and parsley. Blend until a smooth paste is formed.

3. Add the diced butter to a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and whip on medium speed until softened.

4. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl and add half of the pureed mix, whip on a low speed before adding the second half.

5. Initially, the mixture will look split, keep mixing and scraping down the sides and the mixture will emulsify.

6. Once emulsified, add the finely chopped dill and chervil and gently fold through.

7. To serve, warm two tablespoons per person of the butter in a small pot over a low heat, stirring all the time to prevent the sauce from splitting.

8. For the lemon sole

9. Preheat oven to 200°C.

10. Pat the fillets of fish dry with some kitchen paper to remove any excess water. Season with fine sea salt.

11. Preheat a carbon steel or non-stick frying pan on medium-high heat for two minutes. Add the oil and warm.

12. Working in batches, place the lemon sole in the pan, laying the fillets skin side down and away from you, to avoid oil splatters. Do not disturb the fillet or move the pan.

13. Once the fish is golden brown on one side, use a fish slice to confidently lift the fillet from the pan and place on a lightly greased tray.

14. Once all the fillets are seared on one side, place the tray in the oven for 2-3 minutes to finish cooking, depending on the size of the fish.

15. Serve with the verde butter.

Fish tales

Store fish fillets on a plate or tray in a single layer in the fridge. Avoid stacking fillets and covering in plastic, both will cause the fish to leech water.

Remove the fish from the fridge 15 minutes before cooking.

If you are nervous about the fillets sticking to the pan you can coat them lightly in flour to create a non-stick barrier. Make sure you shake off the excess before adding to the pan

Allowing the crust of caramelisation to develop evenly at the beginning of cooking the fish is key and will make removing the fillets much easier from the pan.

No matter what piece of fish you are cooking, when removing from a pan, always lift from the tail end of the fish. It causes less damage to the skin.