Playing with food

At our monthly dinner party for November, I made a French menu, an Italian menu, and two American desserts (I am convinced that the United States' contribution to cuisine is, and will remain, in the dessert field. There are so many GOOD desserts that come out of American kitchens and restaurants that are original, thoughtful and tasty that it defies tradition. Any skeptics should refer to Richard Sax' book on the topic, or the books by David Lebovitz).

But I digress. One dish I made, which is a French classic, was "sole veronique." When I was first learning how to cook, I learned that if "veronique" was in the name of the dish, it meant there were green grapes. Just like "Florentine" meant spinach. There were others too, which I've forgotten, but those two remain.

Sole veronique, as far as I can tell, has fallen on hard times. I don't see it on menus, you don't hear about people make it, and truth to be told, I had never made it either. It may have been the most popular item on our menu (excepting perhaps the peanut butter ice cream), even though I received all kinds of grief for not peeling the grapes, which IS called for in the classic recipe (Some of my detractors did point out the local, NY grapes are tiny, and probably not what the originator had in mind. Ok, I'll accept that, but I'm never trying to peel a grape again).

One thing I noticed when I was making the recipe was that because sole fillets are so thin, and so delicate, it was very hard to make the dish "to specs" without making a mess of it. For example, you're supposed to poach the sole, in a pan on the stove, and then move it to a baking dish.

Try to do that and keep the fillet intact. Especially when you're doing twelve of them at once. Or even two.

Anyway, I gave up and didn't finish the poaching. It turned out to not be necessary, and if you didn't know the grapes were SUPPOSED to be peeled, I don't think you'd know.

In chatting with Kevin after the dinner, he wondered if the dish could be made with cod. And you know, I think it could. So I'm presenting a recipe here that I warn you all: I have not made it yet. But it sounds like it should work. You can find sole vernonique recipes on the web, but I'll present how I made it, and then the cod variation. Try it. It's a lot easier than you may think and you can smile and say "I'm cooking CLASSIC French food."

You'll need two pounds of sole fillets, a cup of white wine, or chicken stock, or fish fumet, or a combination of these . Now, I don't know about you, but I do not keep fish fumet on hand. But what I DID do is sit the sole in a cup of dry chardonnay for half an hour (ALWAYS use a wine you would drink when you're cooking. ALWAYS. It doesn't have to be the same one you're going to drink but if you wouldn't sip it, don't cook with it). Then I did move the fillets to a baking dish, reserving the wine.

I combined two tablespoons of unsalted butter with two of flour, to make a small amount of a roux, and then slowly added the wine, cooking until it was thick. A pinch of salt next. Then, I added half a cup of heavy cream and cooked it, too, until it was thickened. Finally, I added a heaping cup of stemmed, seedless (but not peeled), green grapes. A quick taste to correct the seasonings, and the sauce was done.

This sauce is hot, and when I poured it over the thin slices of fish, it cooked them just enough. I then ran the whole dish under the broiler for five minutes and served it forth.

If you didn't get there fast, you didn't get any of the sole.

Now for the cod, I would do this precisely the same way, but since cod is thicker, I think I would in fact poach it just for about five minutes in the liquid. Cod has a stronger taste than sole to me, so I might use half chicken stock and half white wine. And also, now that grapes are out of season, maybe I would saute an apple in some butter, and use that instead.

Let's call this one "Codfish ala Sterns" He would prefer for me to call it "Codpiece ala Sterns," but we'll all deal with it.

Try it. Let me know how it turns out.