Filets de Soles en Pilaw à la Levantine

Filets de Soles en Pilaw à la Levantine (sole pieces with pilaff and curry sauce) teaches separation. The rice borders, the fish fills, and the sauce belongs to the center alone. Each spoonful brings the buttery grains and sauced sole together at the table, but they must remain distinct on the platter.

The original assumed finished Riz Pilaff (No. 2255), a saucier minding the curry sauce, white stock never off the fire, and extra hands to sauté the fish and aubergine while another cook shaped the border. Your equivalent is one small saucepan, one wide skillet used twice, and a warm platter shaped with two spoons instead of a metal border mould. I change only the service order: sauce and rice wait, sole goes last. Parallel cooking and extra pans were brigade scaffolding; butter-tossed fish, capsicum folded into the pilaff, aubergine in the center, and sauce kept off the rice are the dish and must stay. One cook, one stove, one evening.

The one step that decides the dish is the final pour. Shape a firm rice border before the fish enters, then spoon the curry sauce from the center outward and stop well short of the grains. Restraint here gives you the contrast the recipe promises.