"Home Cooking"

This meal was from the Wheeler's Recipe Book.  A word about the book, first.  Wheeler's was an upmarket chain of fish restaurants in London which I would go to in my youth, with my mother or father.  I think of Wheeler's restaurants as being pioneering gourmet fish restaurants in England (as opposed to the ubiquitous fish-and-chip shops).  I guess my mother must have bought the book as inspiration for her cooking and then I must have taken the book when all her belongings were distributed.  In any case, it reminds me of her (and Dad too).  That's the good part.

The bad part is that the recipes are absurd.  Take the 'recipe' which I 'followed' tonight.  It's for Sole Meunière.  I was all excited about the dish, because of the memory I had of when Katherine and I went to L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Paris.  The fish then was unctuous, salted to within an inch of its life, buttery, fragrant, and dreamily delicious. (I don't think Katherine liked it as much as I did.)  But the Wheeler's recipe leaves much to be desired: "Flour the sole [no indication of how much flour] and cook in butter [no indication of how much butter] to which has been added a little oil [no indication of how much oil] and the juice of half a lemon [miracle!]... When cooked (about 12-15 minutes) [each side?  Does one turn the fillets?] place the sole on a hot dish, pour over the cooking juices and sprinkle with chopped parsley [Italian?  Curly?]".

Faced with this recipe, the fact that I couldn't get hold of Dover sole seemed like the least of my problems.  Instead, I went for Lemon Sole (from the same fishmonger mentioned in previous posts; when I went there with Evelyn this evening they were giving away their freshly baked bread for free, so I got some of that too.  Bread and fish go well together.).  So far so good.

But I couldn't bring myself to add the lemon juice to the butter and oil while the fillets cooked.  I mean, wouldn't they just end up poaching in lemon?  So I chickened out, and just added lemon to the pan juices (along with the parsley).  The result wan't bad at all - just, well, 'home cooked'.

Every Englishman needs to have his fish served with potatoes, so I did fried potatoes (slices of potato boiled to the point of disintegration, then fried in olive oil):

They came out looking good (pictured here alongside the fish recipe):

The final dish was sole meunière on a bed of spinach, with fried potatoes and bread

 and a 2010 Macon-Villages from Louis Jadot:

The meal was very good.  As Katherine said, 'we should have it again'; what she meant was: 'this meal was not so rich/gourmet/difficult that we should only have it occasionally'.  I was somewhat disappointed by the fish.  But that's what happens when you have tasted cooking by a chef of the century.

Next up, the third English recipe book in a row.  The Conran Cookbook is another cookbook from an English restauranteur, but this time, the recipe book is full of proper recipes.  Lucy gave it to me on my 28th Birthday (confirmed by the inscription inside the book), and I remember that she gave me along with it a couple of pans which I am still using (the large steel sauté pan, and the saucepan with steamer insert).  So all in all, today's book and the next book are very much a Morison family affair.  (The Southern cookbooks are looming on the next shelf, so Katherine's family will have their day...)