Sole Á La Colbert

Sole Á La Colbert is served with a melted butter sauce containing anchovy and garlic and garnished with lemon wedges and plenty of chopped parsley with some parsley sprigs.

Ingredients:

• Dover sole – 2 or 3 fillets
• all-purpose flour or plain flour – enough for coating the fillets. It usually amounts to about 100g.
• 2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
• 1 knob of butter
• salt – a pinch
• parsley – chopped finely and some sprigs left over.

The Anchovy Sauce

• 6 anchovies, mashed up and ideally deboned
• 1 clove of garlic – minced or finely chopped
• 1 oz. of melted butter
• 1 oz. flour
• 1/2 pint of fish stock made from the bones of the filleted sole
• Lemon juice
• Lemon wedges
• Parsley – chopped with some sprigs unchopped

1. Heat the oven to 190ºC
2. The skinned fish is filleted. 
3. An original recipe book called ‘High-Class Cookery‘ which was written in 1885 by Edith Clarke suggested folding each fillet around the left thumb and twisting the two ends together. It’s not easy to visualise this but I would just place the twisted fillets or otherwise on a buttered baking sheet.
4. Season the fillets with some salt and lemon juice.
5. Cover with another piece of buttered baking paper and bake in the oven for 10 minutes as=t 190C.
6. When they appear done by having a slight brown coloring.
7. Stuff with a Maitre d’Hotel butter and roll the fillets in brown bread crumbs.

Plate up by forming into a circle and pouring the sauce all around them.

The sauce is quickly made by mixing the garlic and anchovy mixture, butter, and fish stock in a pan. Make sure the butter is melted through.

Adding the flour and mixing it well into the sauce to just thicken and then straining through a sieve before serving.