Filets de Soles Nelson

Filets de Soles Nelson (sole fillets glazed with white-wine sauce) teaches the timing of a composed fish dish. The one true thing to know before touching a pan is this: the quick glaze is a finish, not a second cooking. The sole must remain tender beneath its ivory sauce, the potato balls lightly browned, and the poached milt delicate rather than firm.

The original entry assumed a saucier on staff, fish stock never off the fire, a salamander already hot, and enough hands to poach, sauce, brown, and garnish at once. For four at home, a concentrated fish fumet, two saucepans, a wide sauté pan, and a fully heated broiler do the same work. Fresh cod milt gives the unspecified milt an identifiable home equivalent; the species is named, but its classical function remains unchanged. Separate holding pans and extra hands were brigade scaffolding, so they can go. The folded poach, white-wine sauce, butter-cooked potato balls, milt, and fast glaze are the dish, so they stay.

Have the sauce nappant, thick enough to cling in an even coat, before the sole leaves its poaching liquor. If the sauce slides from the fish, reduce it before glazing. Ça se rattrape. Once the platter goes beneath the broiler, count seconds, not minutes.