Parsley Petrale Sole

I went to Sea Harvest seafood market on Foam Street in Monterey this morning and picked up some very nice fresh petrale sole.  Sole is a very mildly flavored flat fish -- one of the several who make up the flounder family with both eyes on one side of their head -- that cooks very quickly.  Petale sole is found in our Pacific ocean, usually caught in sandy-bottomed areas of our bay; very local in origin.  


I found a few recipes online, most of which require breading or flouring or both, then frying in butter.  Only one recipe was different, so I used it, modifying it to suit our meal.  


I had eight fresh fillets.  I used two sticks of organic butter (room temp), half a box of panko bread crumbs (4 oz.), 8 oz Gruyere cheese and two large heads of Italian parseley.  


Here's what you do:   


Set oven to 400 degrees.  Get our your food processor; fit it with chopping blade.  


First, remove the stems from the parsley and then chop medium-coarse on a board with a chopping knife.  Put chopped parsley in food processor.  


Cube the butter, throw it in the processor with the parsley.  


Pour in the panko crumbs.  


Cut the Gruyere into small cubes, toss into processor.  Pulse/chop until smoothly blended.  It will look like pesto that's dryish and it will be pretty stiff.  I had to start and stop the blending process to push the stuff down around the blade, repeating until blended.


Rinse and dry the fillets.  Lay on pans sprayed with cooking spray. Spoon parsley mix onto each fillet.  Smooth into a low mound on each one.  I allowed each fillet to show a margin all around.  


Bake until fish is opaque - maybe 10 minutes.  Parsley will brown a bit.  You may want to broil it to finish it off with tinges of brown.  Serve piping hot with a twist of lemon garnish.  Very pretty to serve as a Spring entree.


Serve with a spring vegetable and salad, some good French bread.  Not a bad way to enjoy the season. 


Happy Easter!