Linguado

Lean white flesh has no fat to carry flavour; acid is the only seasoning it takes.

Flour, foaming butter, lemon. The dish is three ingredients deep.

Nut against sugar: the fish is sweet, the butter is toasted.

Thrown in last. Its bitterness is the only thing stopping cloying.

Brine and acid in one pellet, for a fish with neither.

Sweet on sweet. The shellfish is what turns a fillet into a dish.

Mushroom liquor and fish liquor reduce into the same sauce.

Delicate flesh, so the wine has to be the seasoning and not the sauce.

A fish this mild needs a herb that will not step on it. Very few qualify.

Iron in the leaf is the only bass note anywhere on the plate.

Toasted flakes give a soft fish the crunch it cannot generate.

Peeled grapes in a cream sauce: pure sweetness where the fish supplies nothing.

Bitter Seville juice in the butter. Keep sugar out and it stays savoury.

Escoffier did it. Shared esters, and the fish is sweet enough.