In his new cooking series, shared exclusively with Food & Wine, French chef and L.A. restaurateur Ludo Lefebvre demos one of his favorite easy recipes. To see the Sole Meunière recipe, click here.
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[MUSIC] We are going to do sole meuniere with rice
pilaf. Sole meuniere is a very classic french dish. In
France, we are doing a lot, a lot of rice
pilaf. I mean I grew up with rice pilaf. My
mom was doing rice pilaf. I learned how to do
rice pilaf in the French cooking school. And actually rice
pilaf is from Middle East. I guess French people like
it and keep it. So we're going to put a
little touch of butter in the saucepan. We're going to
put a little bit of onions. So rice pilaf is
almost like [SOUND]. Of course [FOREIGN]. That's what we call
sabotage. So you're going to melt slowly your butter. And
I'm going to add my onions. You don't want the
neat too hight cuz you don't want any coloration. They
make me cry, the onions. Now we're going to put
some basmati rice. You want the rice also to become
a little bit like, we say in French we say
nacre. Like I would say in English. [BLANK_AUDIO] [INAUDIBLE] like
a pearl? Okay. Color like a pearl. Like a pearl
color, with a little bit of bay leaf, smell so
good. And then after just the gram water. So we're
gonna bring to boil now, cover and we're gonna go
in the oven. Our oven need to be at 375
fahrenheit, voila. For 15 minutes I'm going to leave the
rice alone. Don't bother the rice, the rice is cooking.
So now we're going to cook our sole. Sole meuniere,
it just fish and butter. Buy good quality of butter,
good quality of fish and then [UNKNOWN] technique. We're going
to season it now with kosher salt, little white pepper.
Always white pepper with fish. White pepper is more delicate
than black pepper and after we're going to flour, okay
both sides. I'm not a good fisherman, you know why?
I'm not patient. We're going to start the soul with
clarified butter. Why clarified butter? Cause clarified butter don't burn.
Why? It is a butter with no milk. I prefer
to go fishing in the border of the river. Sometimes
I get sick on the boat, sea sick. The boat
stops. And then I go down to the sea. Take
your sole, put your fish right like this. You need
to hear a little bit, a little gentle sizzling I
learn how to cook a whole fish, when I was
working with one of my mentor, Alain Passard. See, it's
not strong. It's like a, psh. [SOUND] No. It's very
gentle. So Mr. Passard teach me to cook with my
ear. What're you talking about, cook with my ear? So
you can hear the sizzling is going faster, and noisy
so we're going to low a little bit the heat.
[FOREIGN] The School of Fire. A little trick I learned
was cooking the fish with a spatula. Because as you
can see, here. The fish is thicker here and less
thick here. So, how you make sure it's cook even
everywhere? You use a little spatula. And you can put
your spatula here to block the fish. It's technical, but
is very easy. Don't be scared to call fish at
home. Then now I'm going to put a little bit
of butter. Why butter now? Because it can give you
a nice little bit of coloration. So you really want
the fish to swim in the butter. That's good, I
love to see my fish swimming in butter, I think
it's so sexy. Now flip your sole. Now a little
touch of butter, I love butter. There's always a touch
of butter, always. I love butter. Love the smell of
the butter. Touch of butter, boom, more butter, boom, baste,
baste, butter. We want the fish to absorb the butter.
I eat butter all my life, a lot, and I'm
okay. At least it's not sugar. I love the sound
of the butter sizzling. In France we say le beurre
[UNKNOWN]. The butter is singing. In the meantime I'm going
to check the rice. Look at this guys, we still
have a little bit of water, see here. So I
want that to evaporate. So five more minutes and we're
good. It's going to be amazing. Also this cooking, what
we do, what we do? With the sole? What do
you think we do guys? A little touch of butter.
[SOUND] All right, [FOREIGN]. So filet starts to separate from
the bone, so the fish is ready. I'm going to
take up first the filet on the top. Go slowly
like this. Just slowly take off the bone. Put our
fish on the plate, [UNKNOWN], my favorite part, beurre noisette.
Guess what? More butter. So no we're going to melt
the butter. So, you're going to wait the butter to
become a little bit brown, look the butter. That's what
we want, the milk starts to caramelize, a lot of
flavor. We put a little touch of salt, and now
we deglaze with lemon juice. And then, there we go.
And now, put my rice. Boom. So moist. [MUSIC] [FOREIGN]
I need more butter. I dont have enough butter in
my plate. [MUSIC] [SOUND]