Individual Sole Terrines

Happy Passover and Easter to all my dear blog readers!

This weekend, I finally get to relax and to blog, after helping launch a beta of our Distributed Computing product last week, and teaching a Passion for Provence cooking class yesterday night. Oh, and I also get a chance to make brioche. It’s currently in the oven, getting all puffy and golden. I’ll let you know how it comes out once it’s done. Man – it smells so good here. Calvin Klein should come out with a brioche perfume.

Let me rewind the food tape a little, and tell you about a delicious little discovery from last week. Remember the sole rolls stuffed with spinach and crab. Quite often, when you try to make something speedy and practical, good things happen. I had enough sole for two days, but instead of rolling it up and cooking it each day, I decided to cook it all the first day and serve leftovers chilled on the second day to save time. I layered half of the sole with the filling in my shaping rings starting and ending with sole and folding fillets over filling as necessary to fit in the ring. I ended up with 3 layers of sole and 2 layers of filling. Then I dotted the whole thing with butter, covered with parchment and baked in the same pan as the rolls. The rings took longer than the rolls (about 15 minutes instead of 10) since they are bigger. To check them for doneness, I just poked them with a knife and when it went all the way through with no resistance, I figured the fish was flaky enough.

I chilled my cute little terrines overnight. I had an avocado sitting around, getting ripe, and since it was time to use it, I thought why not sole with avocado. I diced it and tossed with a squirt of lemon and a pinch of salt. Piled it on top of terrines and added lightly dressed baby greens. Then I pulled the shaping rings off and voila – pretty chic for a leftover dinner :)

To my great surprise, the sole tasted better chilled than it did hot. As it sat overnight, it got more flavor and body (if there is such a thing for fish). Since the sole got pretty firm after chilling, a little creamy touch of avocado was perfect.

About the ring molds… What can I say, they are fun to play with and make your heart skip a beat when you pull them off and think “Wow, did I really make this?” But empty tuna cans with top, bottom, and label removed can always be used in lieu of “professional” ring molds and produce the same “wow” effect.