Rinse the fillets under cold water and pat them dry with a paper towel. Feel for bones and remove them before you cook the fish (a tweezer is good for this).
Sprinkle Creole seasoning over both sides of the fish and pat with your hands, set aside.
Prepare a baking sheet with a wire cooling rack to place the fish on after they are fried.
Preheat the oven to a very low 150 to 170 degrees to keep the fish warm until ready to serve.
Place the flour and optional seasonings in a flat baking dish and mix the eggs and milk in a separate bowl.
Place a cast-iron skillet over medium heat and add about ½ to ¾ inches of vegetable oil. Heat the oil to 350 degrees.
While the oil is coming up to temperature, coat the fish using the dry-wet-dry method (see Recipe Notes)
Carefully place the coated fillets in the hot oil. Fry for 2 to 3 minutes on each side until golden brown. Make sure that the oil comes back to temperature (350 degrees) before frying the next batch.
Remove the filets to the prepared baking sheet and place in the warmed oven (uncovered) until ready to serve.
To Make the Sauce
Melt butter in a skillet over medium-high heat.
Sprinkle in the flour and stir or whisk continuously until a light roux develops.
Add about half of the green onions (reserve the rest) and stir together for about 5 minutes.
Slowly add the stock, lemon juice and Worchestershire sauce and stir to combine.
Increase the heat to bring the mix to a high simmer for about 2 minutes.
Add the tabasco sauce and reduce the heat to a low simmer.
Allow the sauce to simmer for 5 to 10 minutes until it starts to thicken slightly.
When the sauce has thickened slightly, add the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and shake the pan back and forth while the butter melts.
Taste for salt and pepper and add according.
To serve, place a fillet on each dish and ladle about ¼ cup of sauce on each fillet. Sprinkle top with reserved green onions.
Notes
This recipe was developed using speckled trout, which is a fairly thin fish. It is cooked perfectly in 2 to 3 minutes per side. If you are using a different fish, adjust the cooking time to fit the fish you are using.
Meunière sauce is perfect served over a Gulf fish like speckled trout, drum, redfish, or red snapper, but it’s also delicious over shrimp, soft-shell crab or other firm, flaky white meat fish, salmon and talapia. It's great served over pork chops, veal chops, veal cutlets, pork tenderloin and panneed chicken cutlets.
You can use the same cast iron pan in which you fried the fish to make the sauce if you’d like. Before you get started (during your mise en place steps) make sure to have something to pour hot, used oil into, like a pyrex bowl or something that will take the heat. Remove any burned or very brown bits of batter, but the pan does not have to be completely cleaned out. Start the sauce with the butter and go from there. If you saute the fish in a little butter instead of frying in oil (as described below), you can use the pan without cleaning it out (you may want to remove any burned morsels of flour that may be bitter.)
When preparing the egg/milk and the flour for coating the fish, add some seasonings if you would like. Some hot sauce and fresh ground black pepper in the egg and milk; creole seasonings, garlic powder, and some herbs are great mixed in the flour.
Use a wet-dry-wet method to coat the fish. Use one hand to handle the flour dredges (dry) and the other hand to handle the egg mixture dip (wet), dredge the fish filet in flour (dry), shake off the excess, dip the coated filet in the egg mixture (wet), letting the excess drip off before finishing in the flour again (dry).
When placing the fish in the hot oil, hold the fish on the tail end with the fingers of your right hand, shake off the excess flour before gently placing the other end into the hot oil, starting with the end of the pan closest to you and slowly laying the whole filet in the pan moving away from you. This will help avoid being splashed with hot oil.
Make sure that the oil reaches 350 degrees before frying and returns to 350 degrees before frying the next batch-if not, the fish will not be crispy.
When placing the fish in a warmed oven, do not cover the pan. Covering will create some steam which will also ruin the crispyness.
There are (at least) three ways to prepare the fish on top of the stove and two in the oven:
pan-fried as described here
deep-fried: use about 4 or 5 inches of oil (or enough to fully submerge the filet). Bring the oil to 350 degrees before placing the fish in the oil. It should only take 4 to 6 minutes to cook the fish to a golden brown, depending upon the thickness of the filet
pan sauteed: skip the egg and milk and just dredge the seasoned fish in the flour. Melt about 4 tablespoons of butter (clarified butter is best) in a cast-iron skillet until bubbly, shake off the excess flour and place the fish into the hot skillet. Saute each side for 2 to 3 minutes depending upon the thickness of the filet.
Bake: Prepared just as you would for pan sauteing, place the fish on a baking sheet into a 400-degree oven and bake for about 10 to 15 minutes, depending upon the thickness.
Broil: Prepared just as you would for pan sauteing, place the fish on a baking sheet, place a couple of tabs of butter on each prepared filet and place on the second rack under the broiler for 7 to 10 minutes, watching carefully not to burn it.
Make sure to save some of the green onions to sprinkle on top of the finished dish. Delicious and beautiful!