Episode Seven · The Conversation Was Still There
The flounder.
For once nobody had to write it down first. A man brought it
to the door. Nine thousand feet changes nothing about a fish. It changes the cook.
Why there is only one set of numbers
Altitude is a baker’s problem. Water boils lower and bread rises
faster, and none of that touches a fish in a pan. What changes is you: the
pan heats quicker in thin dry air, and butter goes from foam to brown to
burnt while you are looking for the lemon. Have the lemon out first.
What you need
- 1 or 2 fillets of flounder, patted dry (dry matters more than anything else on this page)
- fine salt
- 2 tablespoons butter, and a little more than you meant
- half a lemon
- a spoon of flour, only if you like a crust
What you do
- Pat the fish dry with a towel and salt it. If you want a crust, a spoon of flour on a plate, the fillet through it, and shake off what does not cling.
- A wide pan on high heat. The butter in. It foams, then it goes quiet, and that is the moment. Not before, when it is only melted; not after, when it has started to brown.
- The fish in, the prettier side down. Three minutes. Do not touch it. It tells you when by letting go of the pan; if it sticks, it is not ready.
- Turn it once. Two minutes, spooning the butter over it as it goes. Flounder is thin. Two is enough. Nothing tonight is bread.
- Off the heat. The lemon over the fish, so it stays bright. A little more butter into the pan, a swirl, and that over the top.
The house standard
White all the way through, flaking under a fork without being asked twice,
the edges just gold. Butter that tastes of butter, lemon that tastes of lemon.
Eaten within five minutes of the pan.
Do not walk away from it. Do not turn it twice.
It is on the site as the house flounder, though it is not the
house’s. It is his. Somebody is in it, the way somebody is in all of
them.
This one walked in while I was cleaning the kitchen.