I had grey sole in the freezer and green grapes in the fridge, and remembered sole Veronique, a dish that I ate a long time ago, in a fancy French restaurant, back when the dish was fashionable, and which I recalled being quite delicious.
Online research came up with a variety of recipes, all of which I synthesized into one which made sense to me. This is incredibly easy to make. I was feeling cheffy so I peeled the grapes, but you could get away with skipping that step. That being said, for one person you will use five grapes, so this is not really an arduous task, especially if you cover the grapes with boiling water for about a minute first.
1 fillet grey sole or regular sole (grey sole is considerably cheaper and gets the task done!)
5 green grapes, seedless if possible
1 tsp chopped tarragon leaves
1/2 lemon
2 tsps butter
1/2 tsp dry Vermouth
1 Tbsp heavy cream
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Peel the grapes, if you plan on doing so. Put them in a small bowl of water and squeeze in the juice from the lemon. This will keep them from turning an off putting beigy brown. Set the spent half lemon aside.
Melt the butter in a small skillet until frothing.
While the butter is melting, salt and pepper the fish on both sides. Add it to the pan and cook over medium heat for 2 minutes on the first side and 90 seconds on the other. Remove to a plate.
Add the dry Vermouth to the pan. Let it bubble away for thirty seconds along with the pan juices, before adding the cream, grapes and tarragon. Stir (or tip your pan around) to combine.
As soon as the sauce has thickened and the grapes are warmed, about a minute, add the fish back to the pan. Spoon the sauce over the top of the fish and bring back to boiling point. This will take under 30 seconds.
Place the fish on your dish and spoon all of the sauce over it. Though this is not traditional, I squeezed the last few drops of the lemon over the top of the fish for a little acidity.
I served this over steamed asparagus and with a side of Crispy Chips.