Eight folded fillets of sole in two rows in a long oval white dish with a silver rim, covered in a thick pale yellow butter sauce lightly glazed gold on the tops, with a silver serving spoon on a grey linen cloth beside it. — Folded fillets of sole under a glazed yolk and butter sauce.

Fillets of Sole in White Wine (1907)

Name: Fillets of Sole in White Wine
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 1 h
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: 100 g small white mushrooms, sliced; 100 ml water for the mushrooms; 10 g butter for the mushrooms; 1 tsp lemon juice; 15 g butter for the dish; 1 small onion (about 60 g), finely chopped; 600 g skinned sole fillets (about 8 fillets, from 2 soles); 1/2 tsp salt; 1/4 tsp ground white pepper; 150 ml dry white wine; 150 ml fish stock; 2 large egg yolks; 1 tbsp cold fish stock for the sauce; 180 g cold unsalted butter for the sauce, diced

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Fillets of sole poached in white wine, fish stock and mushroom liquor, then coated with a butter sauce of egg yolks: Escoffier’s sole au vin blanc of 1907, for the Filet de Sole Mountbatten of 1947.

By The Forgotten MenuPublished Nov 3, 2026

Recipe makes: 4 servings, 8 fillets
Prep: 25 min
Cook: 35 min
Total: 1 hr

Simmer the mushrooms first, since their liquor goes into the poaching. The sauce is made in the last 10 minutes, while the fillets wait covered.

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Folded fillets of sole under a glazed yolk and butter sauce.

The story behind the recipe

The fish course at the wedding breakfast of 20 November 1947 was printed as Filet de Sole Mountbatten, the groom’s surname on the bride’s menu. No record of the Buckingham Palace kitchen says what went on the fillets, so this is a reconstruction from the dish a professional cook of the time knew best for sole: Escoffier’s sole au vin blanc, poached in white wine and coated with a rich white wine sauce.

Why fillets and not the whole fish?

Escoffier had an answer ready. Fillets appear on the menu of a dinner, he wrote in 1907, because “they dish more elegantly and are more easily served than the whole fish,” and the whole sole was a luncheon dish. Where great ceremony was not observed, he allowed, a dinner might have its soles whole, since “no hard-and-fast rule has ever obtained in this matter.” A palace wedding breakfast for 150 was served at lunchtime but with all the ceremony of a dinner, and the card took the dinner form.

His recipe is written for a whole sole, with the fillets partly lifted from the bone and a nut of butter slipped under each, but he says plainly that most of his recipes for the whole fish may be adapted to its fillets. The poaching is quiet: a buttered dish with a little chopped onion, a quarter-pint of ordinary white wine, as much fish stock, and a few spoonfuls of the liquor from cooked mushrooms, with the lid on. His rule for fillets adds that the liquor must never boil, so the pieces keep their shape, and that they should be kept “very white.”

A name on the menu

The note under his recipe is about the menu itself. Made with a fine wine, a Moselle, a Chablis or a Sauternes, the dish could take the wine’s name, so a card might read “Sole au Barsac.” Naming a sole for a person was just as common in his pages, which run from fillets of sole Lady Egmont to Marie Stuart. On the wedding card the groom’s name goes on the fish and the bride’s on the ice.

Making it today

We poach fillets, as the card asks, and choose the third of Escoffier’s three white wine sauces, the one made like a hollandaise with egg yolks and a large amount of butter, finished with some of the reduced poaching liquor in place of his fish essence. He glazed the dish quickly or served it as it was, and a minute under a hot broiler gives the glaze. Flounder or plaice fillets can stand in for sole.

The other two courses of the breakfast, and what the card leaves out, are told in What Was Served at Princess Elizabeth’s Wedding Breakfast in 1947? Escoffier’s sole in another form, fillets rolled around a fish forcemeat, was the fish course on a sultan’s train in 1945: Paupiettes of Sole Choisy (1907).

Partly separate the fillets from the bones on the upper side of the sole, and slip a piece of butter, as large as a walnut, under each fillet. ...

A. EscoffierA Guide to Modern Cookery (London: William Heinemann, 1907), no. 859, Sole au Vin Blanc, pp. 290 to 291, and no. 111, White Wine Sauce, p. 45

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Ingredients

For 4 servings, 8 fillets. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for 4 servings, 8 fillets.

Small white mushrooms, sliced100 g
Water for the mushrooms100 ml
Butter for the mushrooms10 g
Lemon juice1 tsp
Butter for the dish15 g
Small onion , finely chopped1Author measures: about 60 g.
Skinned sole fillets (about 8 fillets, from 2 soles)600 g
Salt1/2 tsp
Ground white pepper1/4 tsp
Dry white wine150 ml
Fish stock150 ml
Large egg yolks2
Cold fish stock for the sauce1 tbsp
Cold unsalted butter for the sauce, diced180 g

Ingredients as written here

100 g small white mushrooms, sliced
100 ml water for the mushrooms
10 g butter for the mushrooms
1 tsp lemon juice
15 g butter for the dish
1 small onion (about 60 g), finely chopped
600 g skinned sole fillets (about 8 fillets, from 2 soles)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground white pepper
150 ml dry white wine
150 ml fish stock
2 large egg yolks
1 tbsp cold fish stock for the sauce
180 g cold unsalted butter for the sauce, diced

Equipment

Small saucepan with a lid, for the mushrooms
Buttered ovenproof dish or sauté pan with a lid, wide enough for 8 fillets in one layer
Heatproof bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water
Whisk
Instant-read thermometer
Fine sieve

Instructions

Put the mushrooms in the small saucepan with the water for the mushrooms, the butter for the mushrooms and the lemon juice. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes, then strain, keeping the liquor. The mushrooms themselves are not part of the dish; keep them for another use.
Heat the oven to 325°F (160°C). Spread the butter for the dish over the bottom of the ovenproof dish and scatter the onion over it.
Fold each sole fillet in half, skinned side inward, and lay the folded fillets on the onion in one layer. Season with the salt and white pepper.
Pour in the white wine, the fish stock and a little of the mushroom liquor. Lay a sheet of buttered parchment on top, cover, and bring just to a simmer on the stove without letting it boil.
Move the dish to the oven and poach for 8 to 10 minutes, until the fillets are opaque and the thickest part reaches 145°F (63°C).
Lift the fillets onto a warm serving dish, cover them and keep them warm. Strain the poaching liquor into a pan and boil it hard until it has reduced by about three quarters.
Whisk the egg yolks with the cold fish stock for the sauce in the heatproof bowl set over barely simmering water, until they thicken and reach 160°F (71°C).
Whisk in the butter for the sauce a few pieces at a time, adding the reduced poaching liquor a spoonful at a time between them, until the sauce is thick and glossy. Season it to taste and keep it off the heat so it doesn’t split.
Pour off any liquid that has gathered around the fillets and coat them with the sauce. Serve at once, or slide the dish under a hot broiler for about a minute to glaze the top first.

Nutrition

520calories per serving

Recipe makes: 4 servings, 8 fillets
Servings: 4

Estimated per serving (4) from USDA FoodData Central values for sole, butter, egg yolk, white wine, onion and mushrooms.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

Allow two fillets a person and keep them in one layer in the dish; for more than eight, use two dishes.

Notes

Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.

Escoffier’s recipe is for a whole sole with the fillets left on the bone; we use loose fillets, as the menu names them, and fold them so they poach evenly. His sauce takes “excellent fish fumet,” a reduced fish stock; we reduce the poaching liquor instead. The amounts of onion, mushroom liquor, yolks and butter for four are ours, worked out from his quarter-pint of wine for one sole and his five yolks to a pound of butter for the sauce. The oven poaching and the parchment are ours. A sauce that starts to split comes back with a spoonful of warm water whisked in off the heat.

Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.