Filets de Soles Orly

Filets de Soles Orly (batter-fried sole with tomato sauce) teaches the first law of frying: hot fat must set the coating before it can absorb the oil. The fillet is delicate, but the pâte à frire (frying batter) gives it a crisp golden shell without burying it. Know this before touching the pan: the oil must reach 365°F (185°C), and it must recover between batches.

The brigade entry assumed batter waiting on the bench, a deep-fat stove, a saucier holding sauce tomate, the smooth tomato sauce built from a stockpot that never went cold, and another pair of hands to fry the parsley. A salamander belongs elsewhere in the canon; Orly is fried, not gratinéed. At home, one small saucepan makes the sauce first, one deep pot and a thermometer manage the frying, and a wire rack replaces the brigade's draining station. One cook, one stove, one evening.

The hatelet, an ornamental skewer used for one alternate presentation, is scaffolding and can go. The last-minute frying and the separate tomato sauce are the dish and must stay. When Orly is right, the parsley crackles under the fillets, the batter is dry and crisp beneath your fork, and the scarlet sauce waits beside it without softening a single edge. Guard the oil temperature; everything else follows.