Sole meunière is a time-honored classic, the dish that made Julia Child fall in love with French cuisine, so the story goes. A combination of butter and lemon poured over sautéed fish, it’s one of those sublimely simple recipes that needs no embellishment. Yet variations abound.
Eggplant, grapes, cucumbers, even radishes and beets have elbowed their way into what is otherwise a minimalist recipe. Sensibly, the French culinary bible “Larousse Gastronomique” gives these frills a thumbs-down, declaring: “This kind of ornament is quite useless and not at all in keeping with the recipe.”
But there’s one meunière spinoff that has broken out of the pack, becoming a classic in its own right: fish almondine.
It starts with the same basic preparation as meunière. Fish fillets are dusted with flour and sautéed in butter (clarified or regular). More butter is added to the pan to brown, then a squeeze of lemon and pinch of minced parsley finish things off.
To make almondine, you toss a handful of sliced almonds into the butter to toast just before the lemon juice. The almonds lend crunch, and intensify the nuttiness of the brown butter. Usually, almondine is spooned over trout, but any fish works, particularly lean flaky fillets, which benefit from the richness of the sauce.
For this recipe, I made two small but significant changes. Instead of sautéing the fillets, I roast them. This lets you skip the flour, lightening things ever so slightly. I also find roasting fish easier and more forgiving than sautéing, and nearly as fast. As a bonus, fish cooked in the oven also tends to be less, let’s call it, aquatically aromatic than fish cooked on the stove.
My second tweak is that, in addition to the lemon juice, I grate in some of the zest, which makes the flavor a few shades brighter and accentuates the citrus character. If you wanted to mix things up, you could substitute lime for the lemon, or use a Meyer lemon with its gentle perfume. I’ve even combined lemon and grapefruit, and it was lovely.
A dish this simple calls for an equally bare-bones accompaniment, maybe some roasted or boiled potatoes next to a mound of steamed broccoli or green beans, which work perfectly with the nutty sauce.
Or serve your fish almondine the way Julia Child had her meunière — by itself, in all of its buttery, pristine glory.
