Fillets of Sole à la Normande (1894)
Reader ratingsAgnes Marshall’s fillets of sole à la Normande, about 1894: cooked under buttered paper, in cream sauce made on a spiced fish stock, with oysters, mushrooms, lobster and truffle.
- Recipe makes
- 6 fish-course servings
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
Start the stock first: it simmers for 20 minutes while you cook the mushrooms and lay out the fish. Bake the fillets while the roux cooks, so the sauce and fish are ready together, and warm the garnish last.
Sole fillets in cream sauce with oysters, button mushrooms, lobster and truffle.
The story behind the recipe
Agnes Marshall, who ran a school of cookery in London’s Mortimer Street, dressed fish in the Norman style with a cream sauce made on the fish’s own stock and a center of oysters, mushrooms, truffle and lobster. Her recipe is for fillets of sole. Brill à la normande was the fish course at the first Nobel Prize banquet, in the Grand Hôtel in Stockholm on December 10, 1901, coming after the hors d’oeuvre and before the beef.
Why sole for a brill course?
Marshall answers that on the same page, a few lines above this recipe: “Brill and Dory should be served similarly to turbot.” She treated the flatfish as one family at table, and the Norman dish she prints is the sole’s. The menu lists the brill; this recipe comes from Mrs. A. B. Marshall’s Cookery Book, a London book in a printing of about 1894, and nothing ties it to the Stockholm kitchen. It shows what the words à la normande asked of a cook in those years: a dish of many parts, with the oysters giving their liquor to the sauce as well as their flesh to the garnish. On her platter the fillets sat on a border of fish forcemeat, which she names without a recipe on this page.
Read more about this recipe
Making it today
Use any thin white fillet sold as sole or flounder, or brill where you can find it, as the menu has. Fillets bought skinned seldom come with their bones, so our stock starts from a good bought fish stock and simmers it with Marshall’s onion, herbs, spice and oyster liquor. The forcemeat border is left out, and so is the bearding of the oysters. Ten grams of truffle is our amount, enough for a slice or two on each plate.
For the beef, the grouse, the wines and the guests’ long night at the Grand Hôtel, read What Was Served at the First Nobel Dinner in 1901?. For a plainer sole from a later book, the Filleted Soles Fines Herbes (1911) bake in a paper bag.
Take the fillets from the sole, trim, and bat them out with a knife which is occasionally dipped in cold water, and season with a little salt and lemon juice; place them in a buttered sauté pan, and put half a gill of cold water and the juice of half a lemon in the pan, cover them with a buttered paper, and cook in a moderate oven for about twelve to fifteen minutes. Take the bones and trimmings from the fish, chop up and put into a stewpan with one or two sliced onions, a bunch of herbs, six or eight peppercorns, a pinch of salt, and one clove, add the liquor and beards from the oysters and cover with cold water, bring to the boil, and cook for fifteen to twenty minutes; put two ounces of butter and two ounces of fine flour into a stewpan, fry them together without discolouring, then mix with three quarters of a pint of the fish stock and the liquor from the fillets, stir together till it boils, then add a gill of cream and a tiny dust of cayenne pepper, tammy and use. Dish up the fillets of sole on a little border of fish farce, and pour the sauce over them; garnish the centre with blanched bearded oysters, button mushrooms and truffle, and cooked lobster cut in square pieces, and serve; put this garnishing all together in a stewpan, and warm it in the bain marie with a little of the mushroom liquor.
Recipe makes: 6 fish-course servings
Ingredients
For 6 fish-course servings. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for 6 fish-course servings.
Stock
- Fish stock2 1/2 cups
- Small onion, sliced1
- Parsley3 sprigs
- Thyme1 sprig
- Bay leaf1
- Black peppercorns6
- Clove1
- Salt, for the stock1 pinch
Garnish
- Oysters, shucked, with their liquor12
- Small button mushrooms200 g
- Water, for the mushrooms1/4 cup
- Butter, for the mushrooms1 tbsp
- Cooked lobster meat, cut in squares200 g
- Black truffle, fresh or jarred, thinly sliced10 g
Fish
- Skinless sole fillets1.5 lb
- Soft butter, for the dish and paper1 tbsp
- Salt, for the fish1/2 tsp
- Lemon, juiced1
- Cold water, for the fish1/3 cup
Sauce
- Unsalted butter, for the sauce4 tbsp
- All-purpose flour1/2 cup
- Heavy cream2/3 cup
- Cayenne pepper1 pinch
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 2 1/2 cups fish stock
- 1 small onion, sliced
- 3 sprigs parsley
- 1 sprig thyme
- 1 bay leaf
- 6 black peppercorns
- 1 whole clove
- 1 pinch salt, for the stock
- 12 oysters, shucked, with their liquor
- 200 g small button mushrooms
- 1/4 cup water, for the mushrooms
- 1 tbsp butter, for the mushrooms
- 200 g cooked lobster meat, cut in squares
- 10 g black truffle, fresh or jarred, thinly sliced
- 1 1/2 lb skinless sole fillets
- 1 tbsp soft butter, for the dish and paper
- 1/2 tsp salt, for the fish
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 1/3 cup cold water, for the fish
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter, for the sauce
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 2/3 cup heavy cream
- 1 pinch cayenne pepper
Equipment
- Medium saucepan for the stock
- Small saucepan for the mushrooms
- Shallow baking dish that holds the fillets in one layer
- Parchment paper
- Heavy saucepan for the sauce
Fine sieve- Small saucepan for the garnish
Instant-read thermometer- Warm serving platter
Instructions
Strain the oysters over a bowl to catch their liquor, and keep the oysters cold until the end.
Put the fish stock, onion, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, peppercorns, clove, salt for the stock and the oyster liquor in the medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, then simmer uncovered for 20 minutes. Strain it through the sieve and keep it hot.
Meanwhile, put the button mushrooms, water for the mushrooms, butter for the mushrooms and a few drops of the lemon juice in the small saucepan. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes, until the mushrooms are tender. Keep them in their liquor.
Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Butter the baking dish and a sheet of parchment the size of the dish with the soft butter.
Lay the sole fillets on a board, skinned side up, and press them flat with the side of a knife dipped in cold water. Season them with the salt for the fish and a little of the lemon juice. Fold each fillet in half, skinned side in, and lay them in the dish in one layer.
Pour the cold water for the fish and half of the remaining lemon juice around the fillets. Cover them with the buttered parchment, buttered side down, and bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until the fish is opaque, separates easily with a fork and reads 145°F (63°C) in the thickest part.
While the fish bakes, melt the butter for the sauce in the heavy saucepan over low heat. Stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes, stirring, without letting it color.
Lift the fillets onto the warm platter, cover them with the parchment and keep them warm in the turned-off oven with its door ajar. Pour their cooking liquid into the hot stock.
Whisk the stock into the roux a little at a time and bring it to a boil, stirring. Simmer for 5 minutes, stirring often, then add the cream and the cayenne pepper and bring it back to a simmer. Taste for salt, and pass the sauce through the sieve.
Put the oysters in the small garnish saucepan with a few spoonfuls of the mushroom liquor. Warm them over low heat for 2 to 3 minutes, until they are plump and firm and their edges curl, and they reach 145°F (63°C). Add the mushrooms, the lobster and the truffle, and heat until the lobster is hot through, 165°F (74°C).
Pour the sauce over the fillets, heap the garnish in the center of the platter and serve at once.
Nutrition
390calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- 6 fish-course servings
- Servings
- 6
Estimated per serving (6) from USDA FoodData Central values for flounder or sole, butter, flour, heavy cream, oysters, lobster and mushrooms.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Scales with the fish. Keep the roux and stock in proportion so the sauce sets the same; the garnish can be cut down by a third without harm.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.
Marshall does not weigh the fish; we use 1½ pounds of fillets for six fish-course servings and set every garnish amount. Her sauce is two ounces each of butter and flour to three-quarters of a pint of stock plus the fillets’ liquor and a gill of cream; our four tablespoons of butter, half a cup of flour, two and a half cups of stock and two-thirds of a cup of cream keep close to that, since the stock reduces as it simmers. Bought fish stock replaces her stock of the fish bones; the onion, herbs, peppercorns, clove and oyster liquor go into it as she directs, and the oyster beards are left out. Her “bunch of herbs” is our parsley, thyme and bay. Folding the fillets, the 350°F (175°C) oven, the doneness temperatures and a sieve in place of her tammy cloth are our changes too. The border of fish farce is left out. Contains fish, shellfish, milk and wheat. Chill leftovers within 2 hours and use them within a day.
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.
Sources and attribution
After Mrs. A. B. Marshall’s Cookery Book (London, about 1894), Fillets of Sole à la Normande; the dish as named on the Nobel banquet menu of December 10, 1901
See the original pages (scan at Internet Archive) (opens in a new tab)
Recipe details
- Course
- Fish course
- Dish family
- Fish & Seafood
- Era
- 19th century
- Source decade
- 1890s
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Occasion
- Dinner partyState banquet
- Season
- Winter