🇩🇪 Germany · Family: Das Fischbrötchen · Region: Northern Germany
On the northern German coast, where the Fischbrötchen counter runs the length of the harbour, the Schollenbrötchen is the one built around a flatfish. Scholle is plaice, a delicate North Sea flatfish with sweet white flesh, and here it goes into a crusty roll either pan-fried in butter or jacketed in a light batter and deep-fried. It sits in the German single-topping tradition the way the other fish rolls do, one decisive thing in a Brötchen, but the decisive thing is fragile in a way ham and sausage are not, which makes the build a more careful operation than most.
The frame is a crusty wheat roll, split, sometimes a Rundstück, chosen so the crust gives bite while the crumb stays soft enough not to fight the tender fish. The craft is all in the fish and the fat. Pan-fried, the plaice is dusted in flour and cooked in butter until the skin and edges turn golden and lacy and the flesh just sets and flakes; battered, it is dipped in a light beer or flour batter and fried hot so the coating goes crisp and the fish steams gently inside its shell. Either way it is laid into the roll while hot and dressed with a cool Remoulade, the herb-and-pickle mayonnaise that is the standing partner to fried fish on this coast. A good one keeps the coating crisp and the flesh moist and barely holding together, the Remoulade sharp against the richness, the roll firm at the base. A sloppy one overcooks the plaice into dry cotton, lets a soggy batter slide off in sheets, or drowns the whole thing in so much sauce that the fish is just a texture in a wet roll.
Variations move with the coast's habits. Zwiebeln, raw or pickled, add a sharp crunch; a few rounds of Gurke do the cooler version of the same job. A leaf of lettuce gives a fresh base under the fish. A squeeze of lemon over the crust lifts the whole thing and cuts the fry-fat cleanly. Some stands swap the Remoulade for a plain mayonnaise or a dab of Senf for people who want it less herbal. The closely related Finkenwerder Scholle, the bacon-and-shrimp Hamburg plate of pan-fried plaice, is a different and more elaborate proposition and deserves its own article rather than being crowded in here.
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Other Das Fischbrötchen sandwiches in Germany: