Sole

The elegant French classic with butter, lemon, capers, and herbs.

Steamed fish with potatoes get drenched in a flavorful brown butter infused with anchovies and chives for a bistro-like meal that comes together in no time.

Barely cracked peppercorns toasted in generous amounts of brown butter make one of the easiest, tastiest finishers for simply seared fish.

Hit all the notes of a fully loaded bagel—complete with tangy yogurt taking the place of cream cheese—with this crispy fish cutlet.

Don’t let fish intimidate you on the grill. Cutting it into wide planks makes it easy to flip.

Simply grilled fish in a foil packet. (Don’t worry if you can’t find turbot. You can use other flatfish such as Dover sole or flounder instead.)

Think of the cucumber as a crunchy and spicy relish that somehow makes fried fish even better. 

Cooking a whole Dover sole like they do at Petit Trois is no easy task (and can turn into an expensive mistake). We modified their sole meunière recipe using fillets instead; equally delicious—and no tears.

“This dish was on our opening menu and still makes an appearance whenever we can get fresh skate wings,” says chef Adam Evans. His method also works with skinless turbot, flounder, or sole fillets.

In this classic sole Meunière recipe, lightly fried fish proves simplicity is best.

Delicately flavored sole is a dieter's BFF, with only 73 calories per 3-ounce fillet.

As à la meunière means “in the manner of the miller’s wife” in French, it’s no surprise that this preparation often calls for the fish to be coated with flour before being sautéed, to promote browning.

Classically, meunière refers to fillets of sole that are floured and quickly sautéed in clarified butter, then finished with parsley, lemon juice, and a little melted butter. Over the years the definition has expanded to encompass a series of flexible techniques that can be applied to just about any thin cut of meat, poultry, or fish.You can serve this with a salad and bread, or with any good potato and vegetable combination. True sole is a uniquely firm fish, best replaced not by local “soles” (like gray sole or Pacific sole) but by sturdy fillets like red snapper, grouper, catfish, black-fish, or sea bass.

I cooked this simple dish in my first restaurant, Buonavia, which I opened in 1971. I made it with fresh lemon sole and fluke, bought directly from the fishermen on Long Island when in season. But you can make it with the fillet of any white fish. It is delicious and quick.

One of my friends once owned a place that served delectable organic small plates in a funky part of town. I had a melt-in-your-mouth soy-miso monkfish that was just to die for. I’ve tried to re-create the experience here. Because monkfish can be hard to find, I use flounder to make this at home, but feel free to use sole, tilapia, salmon, or any fish. For that matter, this would be delicious with chicken or pork tenderloin as well. To make the dish spicier, double or triple the amount of black bean sauce. You can usually find black bean and garlic sauce in the Asian section of the grocery store.

While in the port town of Fécamp in Normandy, France, I stopped for lunch at a tiny hotel-restaurant that had no more than four tables and was run by a husband-and-wife team who apparently did everything from the cooking to serving to making the beds themselves. The catch of the day was Dover sole and the chef served it lightly pan-fried and practically swimming in a bath of the most wonderful lemon-butter sauce I’d ever tasted. The Dover sole sold in Europe is a delicate flat fish native to European waters, including the English Channel on which the town of Fécamp sits. When I’m in the United States, I use Pacific Dover sole or another delicately flavored, fresh, flat fish from waters closer to home. This dish is excellent served with Broiled Asparagus (page 145).

This fish is steamed on plates, which hold the marinade and juices around the fillets. Be sure that the plates you use have enough of a rim to hold some liquid, and are not larger in diameter than the pan you'll be using to steam. In order to fit the plate on top of the steamer, you'll need a steamer basket that's flat all the way across, without a central protrusion. Many Asian bamboo and stainless-steel steamers have this shape but, if you don't have one, you can substitute a ramekin: Simply place the ramekin on the bottom of the pan, fill the pan with water just to the height of the ramekin, and place the plate on top of the ramekin. In her video demonstration, Chef Cheng uses sole fillets for this dish, but any white, flaky fish such as halibut or flounder, would work well.

Sole amandine is a classic preparation for the delicate fish, pairing it with toasty almonds and a lemon butter sauce. Lightly cooked Brussels sprouts add texture.