Le Cordon Bleu - Practical #2

By 8:31 a.m. a lemon sole was slipping through my fish-oil-laced hands.

Holding the fish up, I trimmed the fins with my scissor. First the left. Then the right. Ending with the two miniature fins on top and bottom.

Next I scaled the fish. Moving tail to head, scraping with my paring knife. Flip and repeat.

With my fillet knife I sliced down the centerline and around the head. Then, holding the knife horizontally, I filleted the fish. One. Two fillets. Flip. Three. And four fillets. Repeat on the second fish. Eight fillets in total.

This took some getting used to. The first two fillets were a wreck. They looked like I had pried the fish out of a cat’s mouth. By three and four I was starting to get the hang of it. The final four came out marginally well - each improved over the prior.

After wiping the fillets and my station clean, I was ready to skin. Tail side toward me, I pushed down on the tip with my finger using a horizontal, sawing-like motion I took each fillet from the skin. This went surprisingly well.

A good whack to the vertebrae to release the blood. Then into cold water for extraction.

From here it was forward motion according to the recipe described in the previous post.

Taking my warmed plate from the oven I plated the fish. Then ladled the sauce just so.

Moving too quickly through the reduction stage of the Bercy sauce, mine was a bit runny. And such was commented by the chef. He did say that the sauce tasted good but perhaps a bit less pepper on the fish. The fish? Perfectly cooked.

Runny sauce and too much pepper? A fail in my book. I need to stay focused and push it up a notch.