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Meunière (Fish in Brown Butter)

Photo: ZhengZhou · CC BY-SA 4.0

KOEN FrenchMain course⏱ 25 minEdit history

Meunière (Fish in Brown Butter)

A French fish dish: dust the fish lightly with flour, cook it in butter, then take that same butter further until it turns hazelnut brown and finish it with nothing but lemon juice and parsley. No sauce is made separately — the butter the fish cooked in is the sauce. Which means the whole dish comes down to catching a window of about thirty seconds, between the moment the butter smells nutty and the moment it burns.

Ingredients

4servings
  • Fish
  • white fish · 150g each. Dover sole is the classic; flounder, plaice, cod, salmon and trout all work4 pieces
  • salt1 tsp
  • white pepper0.5 tsp
  • plain flour · for dusting; most of it is shaken off4 tbsp
  • Cooking and sauce
  • butter · for cooking the fish40 g
  • oil · it delays the butter solids burning1 tbsp
  • butter · for the sauce; keep it cold and separate60 g
  • lemon juice · half a lemon; it is the brake on the browning2 tbsp
  • flat-leaf parsley · finely chopped3 tbsp
  • lemon · cut into wedges to serve1

Steps

  1. Dry the fish completely with kitchen paper. A wet surface will not brown — until the water has gone, the temperature is stuck at 100°C (browning and Maillard).

  2. Season with salt and white pepper (salt and seasoning).

  3. Immediately before it goes in the pan, press both sides into a plate of flour and shake it hard. What stays should barely be visible. Floured in advance, it takes up the water the fish gives off and turns to paste; floured thickly, it becomes a crust (choosing flour).

  4. Heat a pan over medium-high and add the 40g butter with the oil. The oil is there because what burns in butter is not the fat but the milk solids — the oil disperses them and raises the temperature they can take (dairy and heat).

  5. When the foaming dies down, lay in the fish and cook 3 minutes 30 seconds, until the edges are deep gold. Do not move it (heat control).

    ⏲ 3 min 30 sec

  6. Turn it and give it 2 minutes 30 seconds more, then move it to a warmed plate.

    ⏲ 2 min 30 sec

  7. Wipe out any burnt flour, then add the cold 60g of butter. Over medium heat it foams up, subsides, and the solids on the base turn hazelnut brown as the smell turns nutty — about 1 minute 30 seconds. That is beurre noisette.

    ⏲ 1 min 30 sec

  8. Take it off the heat and pour in the lemon juice at once. The cold acid drops the pan temperature immediately and stops the browning where it is. Without it, a few more seconds turns it black. Add the parsley and swirl once.

  9. Spoon it over the fish, add lemon wedges and serve immediately. This sauce has no emulsifier and no thickener, so it stiffens and separates as it cools (serving temperature).

Tips & Variations

Variations

  • Meunière is the name of a method, not an ingredient. It means "in the style of the miller's wife", and the name is about the flour. ko.wikipedia defines the whole dish in one line: "the fish is dusted lightly with flour before being cooked in butter." So the fish can be anything — Dover sole is the classic, but flounder, plaice, cod, salmon and trout all take the same treatment.
  • Amandine: flaked almonds toasted in the brown butter. Truite amandine, made with trout, is the best known.
  • Grenobloise: capers, diced lemon flesh and croutons added to the same butter. Much sharper and saltier.
  • Against fish and chips: that one wears a batter and is submerged in oil. This one is dusted and cooked in butter. A thick coating becomes a crust; a thin one becomes a surface. They are different aims, not different degrees of the same one.
  • Against schnitzel and milanesa: those use the three-stage flour, egg and breadcrumb, and they want a crisp shell. Meunière uses one stage, and it is not after a shell at all — it wants a dry surface that will brown, and something for the butter to catch on.
  • The same brown butter as gnocchi. One is tossed with potato dumplings and one is poured over fish, but what happens in the pan is identical.
  • It reached Korea through Japan. The Korean name follows the Japanese ムニエル, which is why mackerel and Spanish mackerel versions are common there — compare grilled mackerel to see how differently butter and flour treat the same fish.

Tips

  • Dry the fish completely. When meunière fails to brown, this is almost always why. While water remains, the pan surface is stuck at 100°C and the Maillard reaction never starts.
  • Flour at the last second, thinly, and shake it off. Floured in advance it takes up the water the fish releases and goes sticky, and sticky flour cooks grey rather than gold.
  • Put a little oil in with the butter. What burns in butter is the milk solids, not the fat. Oil disperses them and lets them take more heat.
  • The brown butter window is about thirty seconds. From the moment the foam subsides and the smell turns nutty to the moment it smells black and bitter. Judge it by smell, not colour — the solids tell you before you can see them.
  • The lemon juice is the brake. Taking the pan off the heat is not enough; it is still hot. Cold acid drops the temperature at once and stops the browning where it is. Reverse that order and the sauce burns.
  • Stainless or cast iron beats non-stick. On a black base you cannot see whether the butter is hazelnut or burnt.
  • Parsley off the heat. Into hot butter it loses its aroma and its colour.
  • Warm the plates. This sauce is not emulsified, so it sets the moment it meets a cold one.
  • It cannot be made ahead. Serve it the moment it is done. There are no leftovers of meunière.

The basics behind this dish

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