Pan-fried Dover Sole

by Mary on February 25, 2019

Pan-fried Dover sole

I’m on a roll with expanding my fish cooking skills and picked up some Dover (Pacific) sole. It’s listed as a best choice by the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch. Despite that I see that Good Fish doesn’t include sole in its pages and that sole is fished by bottom trawling. That fishing method leads to a lot of bycatch and can damage the ocean floor. I will keep an open ear to learning more about this fish.

I used part of a Good Fish halibut recipe to make a simple treatment for the fish. I combined Dijon mustard, yellow mustard seeds, and lemon or Key lime juice. The Key lime juice was zingier but the fish was good with lemon too, not sure which way I like better. It took me a couple of days and multiple rounds of pan-frying to go through my 3# package of fish from Costco.

It was very forgiving, turning out tender and buttery every time. Depending on how hot I’d gotten the oil in the cast-iron pan, I cooked it for 3 or 4 minutes before flipping it over. As soon as I’d flipped it over it seemed ready, which I verified by trying a bite of it. That was easy!

Pan-fried Dover (Pacific) Sole
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Author:
Recipe type: main
Cuisine: American
Serves: 1#
Ingredients
  • 1 Tbsp. lemon or Key lime juice
  • 1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
  • ¼ Tbsp. yellow mustard seeds
  • 1 Tbsp. high heat oil such as canola
  • 1# Dover (Pacific) sole filleted into small, thin pieces
  • salt
Instructions
  1. Combine the lemon or lime juice and the mustard in a large bowl and mix together. Add the mustard seeds.
  2. Roll both sides of each piece of fish into the mixture until generously covered (if you run short, you can easily mix up a little more.
  3. Heat the oil in the cast iron pan on med-high heat until shimmering.
  4. Cook the fish for 4 minutes, or 3 minutes if you got the pan very hot, then flip the fish with a spatula. Check doneness, it ought to be very moist and tender.
  5. Remove immediately from the pan.
  6. Salt if desired and serve.

 

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Shophnie Bowman February 18, 2020 at 6:33 pm

I’d like to think I’m a pretty good cook, but, I’m lacking in fish recipes. Thanks for this!

Reply

Mary May 20, 2020 at 4:52 am

Thanks for visiting and commenting, it’s nice to know that folks are still getting use out of this blog!

Reply

Leave a Comment

Rate this recipe:  

CommentLuv badge

Previous post:

Next post: