A golden floured fillet of sea bass on a white plate, glistening with browned butter and scattered with chopped parsley, with half a lemon beside it. — Sea bass fried in butter the meunière way.

Sea Bass Meunière (1907)

Name: Sea Bass Meunière
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 25 min
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: 4 sea bass fillets (about 6 oz each), skin on; 1/2 tsp salt; 1/4 tsp pepper; 1/3 cup all-purpose flour; 3 tbsp clarified butter or ghee, for frying; 2 tbsp chopped parsley; 1 lemon; 4 tbsp butter, for the meunière butter; 2 lemons, halved, to serve

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Sea bass meunière after Escoffier (1907): fillets dusted with flour, fried golden in butter and finished with lemon, parsley and butter cooked until it smells of nuts.

By The Forgotten MenuPublished Oct 27, 2026

Recipe makes: 4 servings
Prep: 10 min
Cook: 15 min
Total: 25 min

Have the plates warm and the parsley ready before the fish goes in: the butter is browned in the last minute and poured over at once.

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Sea bass fried in butter the meunière way.

The story behind the recipe

Escoffier called it an “excellent mode of procedure,” and the Pan American Society’s menu for 27 May 1912 needed only one word of it: “Sea Bass, Meunière,” between the relishes and the cucumber salad. The word names a method, and this recipe follows the method as Escoffier’s London Guide of 1907 sets it out.

A miller’s way with fish

A meunière fish is floured and fried in butter. Fried that way and no further, Escoffier writes, it is called doré, “gilded.” The meunière finish is a second step: lemon and parsley on the fish, and a fresh piece of butter cooked until it “begins to brown slightly,” poured over at once so the dish goes to the table still covered with the froth it raises on the parsley. His recipe for meunière butter adds that it should have “a slight smell of nut.”

The menu doesn’t say which sea bass, or how the Waldorf’s kitchen cut it. If it was the black sea bass of the East Coast, the date suited it: NOAA Fisheries says the fish move inshore into coastal waters and bays in spring.

Making it today

Escoffier allows “slices or fillets of fish,” so we use skin-on fillets about an inch thick, fried in clarified butter as he asks for larger pieces; ghee, clarified butter cooked a little longer, does the same job and keeps. He scalds the chopped parsley before it goes on the fish, and we leave that step out. Cook the fish until the center reaches 145°F (63°C) and the flesh flakes.

The soup before it, Sorrel Soup, Printanière (1907), comes from the same book. The rest of the dinner is in What Was Served at the Pan American Society’s Dinner in 1912?.

This excellent mode of procedure is only suited to small fish or the slices of larger ones. ...

A. EscoffierA Guide to Modern Cookery (London: William Heinemann, 1907), no. 778, The Cooking of Fish à la Meunière, pp. 264 to 265, and no. 152, Butter à la Meunière, p. 57

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Ingredients

For 4 servings. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for 4 servings.

Sea bass fillets (about 6 oz each), skin on4
Salt1/2 tsp
Pepper1/4 tsp
All-purpose flour1/3 cup
Clarified butter or ghee, for frying3 tbsp
Chopped parsley2 tbsp
Lemon1
Butter, for the meunière butter4 tbsp
Lemons, halved, to serve2

Ingredients as written here

4 sea bass fillets (about 6 oz each), skin on
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3 tbsp clarified butter or ghee, for frying
2 tbsp chopped parsley
1 lemon
4 tbsp butter, for the meunière butter
2 lemons, halved, to serve

Equipment

Large heavy frying pan
Thin fish spatula
Shallow dish for the flour
Small saucepan
Instant-read thermometer

Instructions

Warm the plates in a 200°F (95°C) oven. Pat the sea bass fillets dry and season both sides with the salt and pepper. Put the flour in the shallow dish.
Heat the clarified butter in the frying pan over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Dip each fillet in the flour, shake off the excess, and lay it in the pan skin side down.
Fry for 3 to 4 minutes, until the underside is golden, then turn the fillets with the spatula and cook 2 to 3 minutes more, until the center reaches 145°F (63°C). Lift them onto the warm plates.
Squeeze a few drops of juice from the lemon over each fillet and scatter over the parsley.
Wipe out the pan, or use the small saucepan, and melt the butter for the meunière butter over medium heat. Let it foam and cook until it turns golden brown and smells nutty, about 2 minutes. Pour it over the fish at once, so it froths on the parsley.
Set the halved lemons beside the fish and serve immediately.

Nutrition

330calories per serving

Recipe makes: 4 servings
Servings: 4

Estimated per serving from USDA FoodData Central values for sea bass, butter, clarified butter, flour and lemon.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

Fry no more fillets at a time than the pan holds without crowding; keep the first ones warm while the rest cook.

Notes

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

The lemon halves on the side come from Escoffier’s doré garnish; his meunière fish goes out with only its butter and parsley. Any firm white fillet about an inch thick works the same way: striped bass, snapper or cod. For another Escoffier bass, try Bass with Venetian Sauce (1907). Escoffier’s meunière is for small whole fish too; a whole small fish needs a few minutes longer on each side.

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.