"One should eat cumin every day!"
Joël Robuchon (1945-2018)
I must have come across this recipe by perusing the website, The Mediterranean Dish, around the time that my father sent me a link to what is now in my recipe collection as "Baked Spiced Cod with Garlic and Lemon". The two dishes are not a million miles apart conceptually.
Winter is when lemon sole appear in my local farmers' market and I think this treatment for them is just right. I'd actually like to try it with megrim (or what is now being called "Cornish Sole") but it genuinely is years since I last saw a megrim for sale anywhere near me.
This is very simple recipe and quite quick to make too. It's therefore a perfect mid-week supper and only needs the most modest of accompaniments, but I can recommend some bread amongst them.
The perfect way to prepare the fish is to scale it and remove it from the bone in, what I call, 'double-fillets'. That is, each side of the fish is removed in one piece. This isn't the easiest thing to do at home but all fishmongers will be happy to do it for you.
You can serve this with almost anything that you fancy to go with it. Some rice or boiled potatoes for example, some green beans or broccoli perhaps but, it is probably worth having some bread to hand, to mop up the spiced, oily, buttery juices.
Lemon Sole Fillets Baked with Cumin, Garlic, Lime and Dill
Ingredients (Serves 2)
2 x 350g lemon sole, scaled and taken off the bone as double fillets, trimmed
2 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp melted butter
8 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus a little extra for greasing
½ tsp salt, plus extra for seasoning
1 shallot, thinly sliced
2 small or 1 large garlic clove, thinly sliced
1 tbsp capers, rinsed and drained
½ tsp ground cumin
½ garlic powder
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper, plus extra for seasoning
4 spring onions, trimmed and halved lengthways
A few thin slices of lime
Handful dill sprigs
Method
Preheat the oven to 190°C oven.
Whisk together the lime juice, melted butter, olive oil and salt. Stir in the sliced, shallot, sliced garlic and capers.
In a small bowl, combine the cumin, garlic powder and black pepper and mix well. Dust both sides of the sole fillets with all of this spice mix.
Lightly grease a baking dish and lay the sole fillets in a single layer in it. Pour over the butter and oil mixture then lay the sliced spring onions and lime slices decoratively on top.
Bake in the oven for 10 mins until the fish is just cooked. Sprinkle the dill sprigs over the dish, season and serve.
Links
"Baked Sole Fillet, the Mediterranean Way", themediterraneandish.com, accessed 15 December 2021
"Baked Spiced Cod with Garlic and Lemon", Bute Street Seafoodie