Filet de Sole Véronique
Put 1 tablespoon butter in a shallow pan and add 2 shallots, finely chopped, or 1/2 small onion, finely chopped. Season 6 fish filets with salt and a little pepper and arrange them on the shallots and butter.Sprinkle them with 1/2 cup white wine. Cut a circle of paper the size of the pan, make a small hole in the center, butter it, and place it, buttered side down, on top of the fish. Cover the pan. Bring to a boil and cook for 10 to 12 minutes. Remove the fish to a heatproof serving dish. Cook the liquid in the pan until it is reduced to about 1/2 cup and add 1/2 cup cream sauce mixed with 1 egg yolk and 2 tablespoons butter. Cook just until the butter is melted. Use drained canned grapes or simmer 1 cup small seedless white grapes in a little water for a few minutes, drain, and place them around the fish. Fold 2 tablespoons whipped cream into the sauce and pour it over the fish. Brown under a hot broiler flame.
Grapes, however, are not the only fruit that can be used successfully in fish dishes. Oranges make a nice variation. I started using them during prohibition when wine that was sold for cooking was loaded with salt to keep people from drinking it. As this also spoiled it for most cooking, I looked for other ways to fill the lack. Orange juice worked out very well in some dishes. I used a Florida fish, pompano, as well as the Florida fruit and called the dish pompano Florida. But I must confess that as soon as we were rid of prohibition, I turned a good recipe into a much better one by adding some wine to it. The recipe uses the peel of the orange in somewhat the same way that it is used in duck à l'orange. The trick in preparing the fine julienne of orange peel is to use a very sharp knife to slice off a layer of rind so thin that none of the white part is included and then to make sure that the flavor of the rind, or zest, will not be overpowering by parboiling the julienne in water for a few minutes.
Filet of Pompano Florida
Remove the peel from 2 oranges, cutting off only the thin orange part, and cut into fine julienne. Cover with water, parboil for a few minutes, and drain. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a shallow pan and add 1 teaspoon finely chopped shallots or onion. Season 6 filets of pompano or other firm-fleshed fish lightly with salt and arrange them in the pan. Add 1/2 cup fish stock or water and the juice of 1/2 lemon and 2 oranges. Spread the drained julienne of orange peel on top of the fish.
Cut a circle of paper the size of the pan, make a small hole in the center, butter it, and place it, butter side down, on the fish. Cover the pan. Bring to a boil and cook for 10 to 12 minutes. Remove the fish to a heated serving dish. Cook the liquid in the pan until it is reduced to 1/2 the original quantity and add 1 cup Newberg sauce (see below). Bring back to the boil and add, if desired, 1/2 cup sherry or Madeira. Strain the sauce over the fish, replacing the orange peel that falls off.
Newberg Sauce
Heat 2 tablespoons butter in a saucepan, blend with 1 tablespoon flour, and gradually add 1 cup cream, stirring constantly until it is thick and smooth. Do not boil. Add salt and cayenne to taste and pour slowly over 2 well-beaten egg yolks, stirring constantly. Place over boiling water and cook, stirring well, for 3 minutes. Flavor with 2 tablespoons dry sherry.
This fish recipe brings to my mind a few other tricks with oranges that may interest you. First come salads made with oranges. In France, a salade d'orange consists only of slices of orange. But the trick of the French which gives their own, and always slightly different, touch is to let some of the peel marinate with the slices and the juice for a few hours to add its flavor—discarding it before serving, of course—and then, at the last minute, to sprinkle a little curaçao over the fruit. This changes an ordinary sliced orange into a very pleasing dessert.
Another thrifty French trick is to serve fruit salad mixtures in the orange shells instead of throwing them away. First, of course, you must prepare the shells. Select a large, brightly colored orange with a thick skin and trim the bottom a bit if it doesn't stand steady. Cut a slice off the top with a sharp knife, preferably one that is curved like a grapefruit knife, cut all around the inside to separate the fruit from the skin. Then cut down through the center of the fruit to make four quarters and lift them out. This way you can use the fruit in a salad mixture. If the salad is to be served with mayonnaise, use a little orange juice in making the dressing.
And I suppose I wouldn't be true to my heritage if I hadn't tried to use orange shells in some other way. I developed a dessert I called soufflé Infante, which is a modification of a baked Alaska that became very popular.
Soufflé Infante
Prepare orange shells as described above. Chill them thoroughly, fill with orange sherbet (see November, 1950), and store in the freezing unit of the refrigerator until ready to use.
To make the soufflé, whip 3 egg whites until stiff, gradually adding 1/2 cup sugar. Beat the 3 yolks until light and fold them and 1/4 teaspoon vanilla into the whiles. Put this on top of the sherbet, piling it about 1 1/2 inches over the lop and completely sealing in the sherbet. Put in a very hot oven for a few minutes to brown the souffle and serve immediately. The orange skin and the soufflé insulate the sherbet.
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