![]() ![]() The butter should turn the mid-brown colour of hazelnut husks. The French translation is “hazelnut butter” – keep that in mind when you’re making it. The key to this dish is the beurre noisette, or brown butter. Fish will be cooked around 45-50C, so if the skewer feels warm against your lip the inside of the fish will be just higher than your body temperature (around 38C). Hold the end of the skewer to your lip and if it feels warm, the fish is done. If it feels raw, just keep cooking.Īlternatively, stick a thin metal skewer into the thickest part of the fish and leave it there for a few seconds. I like to imagine that I’m biting into the fish as I press it. Squeeze or press the fillet with your fingers to see if it’s cooked. When cooking fish, I will often cook one side for about 80 per cent of the cooking time, and the second side for just 20 per cent. You don’t need to cook things in a pan for an equal amount of time on each side. The skin of the fish will want to contract and buckle the fillet, so press the fish firmly down with the back of a spatula, base of a pot or cooking weight for about 30 seconds until the fillet relaxes. ![]() Don’t add oil to the pan before heating, as it will burn and smoke before the pan gets hot enough. Julia Child described eating fish meuniere after arriving in France as “absolute perfection … the most exciting meal of my life”. If the water wets the pan, wait a little longer. With practice you can judge this by eye, but otherwise you can test your pan’s heat by observing the Leidenfrost effect: drip a tiny amount of water into the pan and if it “squeaks” and forms a bubble that skims across the surface, it’s hot enough. Place a carbon-steel pan over medium heat and wait until the pan is hot. The process for pan-frying fish is simple. This works well with snapper, whiting, flathead, salmon or barramundi, just to name a few. While the traditional dish is usually made with sole or flounder, you can use any fish you like. Cooking a simple fillet of pan-fried, non-floured fish is a far more useful skill that can be applied to more varieties of fish and many other dishes. It’s an extra step, makes the process of frying a little more difficult and uses more oil. Controversially, I think flour should be optional. “Meuniere” in French is the feminine form of “miller”, and in this dish it refers to the coating of flour that surrounds the fish, protecting it as it cooks and crisping around the edges. Spoon the brown butter over the fish, season with a little salt and pepper and serve with an extra lemon wedge. Cook the butter until it reaches a hazelnut brown colour, then immediately squeeze in the lemon juice and stir through the parsley. ![]() Remove from the pan, pour out any oil in the base of the pan and return the pan to heat.Īdd the butter and swirl until melted. Immediately press down the fish very firmly with a spatula, or use a cooking weight or the base of a saucepan.Ĭook the fish for about 3 minutes until mostly cooked through, then turn the fillets and cook for just a minute on the other side. Add the fish to the pan, holding each fillet at one end and laying it in the pan skin-down, away from your body. Add the oil to the hot pan and rotate the pan to spread the oil. Season the fish with salt and if using flour, dredge the fish in the flour, shaking off any excess. Heat a medium frying pan over medium heat until very hot. Once you become comfortable making this dish, you can adapt a simple fillet of pan-fried fish into dishes from Japanese teriyaki to a simple Aussie barbecue.Ģ snapper fillets, scaled but skin-on (or other fish of your choosing)ġ tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice, plus extra lemon wedges to serve This version is a little different, and it’s more suited to the modern Australian kitchen. Traditionally fish (either whole or in fillets) is dredged in flour and fried in clarified butter, then served with a brown butter sauce. Its popularity in the rest of the world is often attributed to Julia Child, who described eating it after recently arriving in France as, “absolute perfection … the most exciting meal of my life”. If you can competently make all of these you’ll not only eat well, you’ll be a well-rounded cook at the end of it.įish meuniere is a classic of French cooking. I’m taking you through the 10 essential dishes everyone should know how to cook, covering a range of techniques and ingredients. ![]() But what are the dishes that every modern cook should have in their repertoire? These days, recipes for any dish you can think of – as well as many you have never even imagined – are just a few taps on a keyboard away. ![]()
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