Recipe: Pan-fried whiting Colbert style

Pan-fried whiting Colbert style is Sunday food, the dish you pull out when friends are coming and you want to show you can handle fish. It's classic without being heavy, French without showing off. Colbert is a technique from 19th-century Parisian home cooking, when properly fried golden fish was an art. Whiting is available year-round but tastes best in autumn and winter when it's fattier and firmer. Buy it live from a proper fishmonger if you can. Rice flour, if you have it, gives a lighter crust than regular wheat flour. Regular 550 flour works fine too. With wine, stick to crisp dry whites. Sancerre, Chablis premier cru, or even Muscadet if you like the briny notes. The herb butter, with its acidity and fresh herbs, needs something with backbone to match. Light reds don't work here, the richness of the butter sauce overpowers them. For sides, fried parsley is plenty. Some add straw potatoes or watercress salad, that's up to you. What matters is serving everything hot, the cold fish and cold butter put together at the last second.