Sole Meunière is a classic French

French cuisine

French cuisine is a style of food preparation originating from France that has developed from centuries of social change. In the Middle Ages, Guillaume Tirel , a court chef, authored Le Viandier, one of the earliest recipe collections of Medieval France...

 dish consisting of sole

Sole (fish)

Sole is a group of flatfish belonging to several families. Generally speaking, they are members of the family Soleidae, but, outside Europe, the name sole is also applied to various other similar flatfish, especially other members of the sole suborder Soleoidei as well as members of the flounder...

, whole or fillet, that is dredged

Dredging (cooking)

This article is about the cooking technique. For other uses, see Dredge .Dredging is a cooking technique used to coat wet or moist foods with a dry ingredient prior to cooking. Put most simply, dredging involves little more than pulling/rolling the wet food through the dry material to provide an...

 in flour, pan fried in butter and served with the resulting brown butter sauce

Meuniere sauce

Meunière or , French ) refers to both a sauce and a method of preparation, primarily for fish. The word itself means "miller's wife". Thus to cook something à la meunière was to cook it by first dredging it in flour...

 and lemon. Sole has a light but moist texture when cooked and has a mild flavor. Since sole is a flatfish

Flatfish

The flatfish are an order of ray-finned fish, also called the Heterosomata, sometimes classified as a suborder of Perciformes. In many species, both eyes lie on one side of the head, one or the other migrating through and around the head during development...

, a single fish will yield four fillets rather than the two fillets that a roundfish will produce. When preparing Sole Meunière, a true Dover Sole

Dover sole

Dover sole refers to two species of flatfish:* The common sole, Solea solea, found in European waters, the "Dover sole" of European cookery....

 is preferred. In classic service, the whole sole is sautéed tableside and boned by the server.

In her memoir My Life in France

My Life in France

My Life in France is an autobiography by Julia Child, published in 2006. It was compiled by Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme, her husband's grandnephew, during the last eight months of her life, and completed and published by Prud'homme following her death in August 2004.In her own words, it is a...

, written with Alex Prud'homme, Julia Child

Julia Child

Julia Child was an American chef, author, and television personality. She is recognized for introducing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and her subsequent television programs, the most notable of which was The French Chef, which...

 recalled her first meal in Rouen

Rouen

Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...

 of oysters and sole meunière as a culinary revelation.

See also

• Meunière sauce
  Meuniere sauce
  Meunière or , French ) refers to both a sauce and a method of preparation, primarily for fish. The word itself means "miller's wife". Thus to cook something à la meunière was to cook it by first dredging it in flour...
  
  
• Fish and chips
  Fish and chips
  Fish and chips is a popular take-away food in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada...
  
  , the typical fried dish from English cuisine