Fillet of Sole with Tarragon Sauce
Filets de Sole Sauce Estragon
Region: France, Provence
Category: Seafood
Season: Any
Difficulty: Easy

The variety of fish available to the Provençal cook of the Middle Ages was great, if the quantity was not. Fish, whether it was fresh, salted, or dried, was an important substitute for meat during fasts imposed by the liturgical calendar. There was bream, shad, carp, trout, salmon, pike, eel, sturgeon, tench, sole, mullets, ray, and many others. Throughout the coastal Mediterranean, from Murcia in Spain to Provence, fish were fried in olive oil in the sixteenth century. There were two reasons for this. First, in Mediterranean France the population had been decimated during the Black Death, and the plague was almost an annual occurrence in the Languedoc from 1481 to 1516. But by the sixteenth century the population's recovery meant demands for more food and employment. As the French historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie showed, the classic Mediterranean response to a rise in population in terms of agriculture when soil nutrients are lacking is irrigation and assarting, the grubbing of forest land to make it arable. Therefore, the sixteenth century saw the growth of arborculture and viticulture. The population could have reclaimed vacant land or planted trees and vines on old and new assarts. The latter solution occurred in Provence and Languedoc, increasing the returns from agriculture through a more intensive form of land utilization. These were not regular olive orchards but the so-called camp enholieu or camp en olivas, that is, wheat fields planted with rows of olive trees. Olive oil production increased as a result. Second, the consumer was demanding a certain taste in his food, which was provided by olive oil. The frying of fish in olive oil is a method older than the sixteenth century, though, for we know that the Vatican Library and  Bibliothéque Nationale manuscripts of the fourteenth-century French cookery work by Taillevent, the Viandier, instructs the cook to fry sole in olive oil.

Tarragon, an herb member of the wormwood family, is a popular herb in Provence and is used often with fish, chicken or eggs. This recipe is adapted from the delightful cookbook of Bernard Loubat and Jeannette Bertrandy, La bonne cuisine Provençale.

[photo: Clifford A. Wright]

Yield: Makes 3 to 4 servings
Preparation Time: 35 minutes

For the tarragon sauce

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 cup fish broth

Bouquet garni, tied in cheesecloth, consisting of 1 bay leaf and 5 sprigs each of parsley, tarragon, and marjoram

Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh tarragon leaves

For the sole

8 sole fillets (about 1 pound total)

All-purpose flour for dredging

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

6 sprigs fresh tarragon for garnish (leaves from 3 pulled off the sprig)

1. Prepare the tarragon sauce: In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat, then stir in the flour to make a roux. Season with salt and pepper and stir for 1 to 2 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and slowly pour in the fish broth, whisking as you do. Add the bouquet garni and nutmeg. Check the seasoning. Return to the heat and cook for 20 to 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.

2. Pass the sauce through a fine mesh sieve and return to the saucepan. Increase the heat to high, add the tarragon, stir for 1 minute, and remove from the heat. Keep the sauce warm by leaving it on the stove over a turned-off burner.

3. Dredge the sole fillets in the flour, salt, and pepper and shake off any excess flour. In a large skillet, heat the butter and olive oil together over high heat; once the butter has melted and stopped sizzling and is nearly smoking, cook the sole until white and firm, 2 to 3 minutes a side.

4. Ladle some tarragon sauce onto individual plates and lay a sole fillet on top. Garnish with some tarragon leaves and a sprig of tarragon and serve.

Posted: 07/15/2008

Needed Recipes:

Fish Broth

Referenced Recipes:

Fish Broth