Selling My Sole to Veronique

Every fortnight (or every 15 days if you’re in Mexico), Dan Perlman of Casa Salt Shaker, Buenos Aires’ best puerta cerrada, invites friends to cook with him remotely, linked up by way of a Google Hangout. Last week’s challenge was Sole Veronique, which you can read about at Dan’s blog:

Reinventing the Whisk, #1.

Now, here’s what could’ve been done on my end to improve upon this dish:

• Add lemon zest. I forgot, and it was sitting right on the counter next to the stove.
• Use dry vermouth instead of white wine, but not both. I happen to think that dry vermouth makes everything better and is the ideal alcohol-based cooking medium. I tend to get heavy-handed when it comes to adding wine to anything.
• Add lemon slices to the poaching broth.
• Try using white pepper instead of the wasabi. (Note to self: buy some white pepper.) Maybe add a little cayenne.
• I had briefly toyed with the idea of wrapping the filet in saran and cooking it in the electric steamer, but now I’m intrigued by the idea of cooking it in Ziploc bag. I’m assuming the freezer bag quality would work. A FoodSaver hermetically sealed bag would’ve been even better. But then there would’ve been the loss of the fish-flavored poaching broth for the sauce.

I see this dish as having a lot of room for creativity and variation. And instead of explaining to anyone who doesn’t agree that “this is how it’s done in France,” simply tell them that “you’re not in France.”

While I was pleased with the fava bean, going for some color while using locally sourced produce, brown rice, wild rice or even Israeli couscous could’ve easily worked as well.