Sole Fish
(Cynoglossus Macrolepidotus)

 Available Size : 3/6,6/8,8/12,12/18,20/30,30/40, 30/50, 50/100, 100/200, 200/300 pcs/kg
French: Sole, Japanese: Shitabirame, Spanish: Languado
Peak Season: July – Sepetember
The sole is one of the finest fish in the kitchen,
its bone-free, blossom-white meat tastes nutty and tender,
but still has a bite.

FINE FISH FOR MANY OCCASIONS

Sole – a fine fish that offers many creative possibilities and is easy to prepare. Sole is particularly easy to prepare whole. Due to their handy size, they can even be fried whole in a large pan. It is particularly easy to turn when roasting without disintegrating, and in the end loves a small piece of butter, a splash of wine, a little lemon and fresh garden herbs, maybe a few capers. Served with jacket potatoes and salad, it is a feast for everyday life.

RECIPE: SOLE WITH WINTER SALAD & CAPER BUTTER

Sole-Winter Salad-Capers-Butter-Recipes-Main Courses-780x500

 

Even the inexperienced can portion the cooked fish: the fillets are to the left and right of the thick central bone, the skin can be easily peeled off, and the fillets themselves are free of bones. The sole can also be prepared whole in the oven, on a tray with herbs and garlic, for example, with a few cubes of bacon or fresh tomatoes and spicy olives. And of course the sole can also be steamed and stewed, its meat always tastes nutty-fine with a subtle flavor that goes particularly well with fine mustard sauce, crustacean sauce or béarnaise sauce – accompanied by boiled potatoes, spinach or creamy vegetables à la crème. Sole fillets taste good fried in butter or olive oil on a salad or with vegetables.

The raw fillets can also be decoratively twisted into roses or rolls, optionally placed as an elegant bow around leaf spinach before cooking and then, fixed with toothpicks, poached or steamed. The fine sole is a very special fish for every occasion and many occasions!

ORIGINAL AND FAKE

Every now and then the fine sole is mistaken for the cheaper sole, but there are also external features that give an indication of which fish is present: The body shape of the two flatfish is different: the sole is wider than the sole, and its head is more pointed. The side of the eyes of the red tongue is also yellow-brown and is reminiscent of marble, that of the sole is uniform in the course and a little darker.

OF THE BEST ORIGINS

Our sole comes from the north-east Atlantic, they come from the North Sea between Denmark, Norway and Sweden, from Skagerrak and Kattegat. The meat of the sole from these cool waters has a particularly firm structure.

sole
WHOLE SOLE
  1. DESCRIPTIONThe sole belongs to the flatfish order and is a very well-known and popular food fish. It is mainly active at night and then goes in search of mussels, crabs and smaller fish. Since sole is very sensitive to the cold, they move to warmer areas in the winter months. Adult sole is right-eyed, up to 60 centimeters long and can reach a maximum weight of 2 kilograms. Their body is elongated, oval and can easily adapt to the color of the ground. In the best case scenario, the animals can reach an impressive age of up to 17 years. Sole is sexually mature in the third to fifth year of life. During the spawning season at the beginning of summer, they move to flatter regions near the coast, where the larvae hatch after a short time. The adults are solitary animals.
  2. OCCURRENCESole is found in the North Sea, the English Channel and the Mediterranean Sea, but also along the East Atlantic coast. According to some experts, the fish has the best quality in the fishing areas off Normandy. In order to meet the demand on the German market, one has to rely on catches from other countries. Most of the imports come from Holland, Belgium and Denmark.
  3. FISHING METHODSIn commercial fishing, sole is mostly caught with set nets, trawls or turning seine. The vast majority goes into the net as bycatch when fishing for other flatfish. Due to the small total population of this fish, there are regulations for the protection of young animals, which stipulate a minimum size of the caught specimens. It is also possible to breed the sole in aquaculture, but this is not yet of great economic importance.
  4. SEASONSole is available all year round.
  5. TASTESole has very fine, firm meat with a nutty, sweet and subtly spicy taste.
  6. PREPARATIONSole is suitable for poaching, steaming, stewing, roasting and can be cooked as whole fish in the oven and, thanks to its handy size, in the pan. When frying in the pan, melt a bit of butter on the fish at the end, season with salt and pepper, add capers and a little lemon juice and serve the fried sole with boiled potatoes and salad. The fillets are also good for wrapping fillings in them. These sole rolls are best served poached.

  7. ALREADY KNEW …… that sole has a special ability to protect itself from enemies? When attacked, they usually mimic very successfully the weever, an extremely poisonous fish that is avoided by other marine life.
  8. TIPGourmets attach great importance to filleting this fish by hand. It works as follows with sole: Immerse the tail fin in hot water (at least 60 degrees) for a few seconds. This loosens easily. Place the sole on a cutting board and also scrape with the back of a knife from the tail fin end towards the head, loosening the skin on the tail fin. With the help of a cloth or kitchen paper (then it doesn’t slip that way) hold the tail fin and grab the loosened skin with another cloth and pull it from the tail to over the head with an even pull. Repeat the same process on the other side. Then remove the fillets from the bone.Watch out! It happens again and again that snot and, in the case of fillets, other flatfish are sold instead of the much more expensive sole. The head of snot, however, is more pointed and has a remarkably small mouth. In addition, the side of the eyes of the red tongue has a yellow-brownish color that is somewhat reminiscent of marble, while the sole is more uniformly colored.