Part 2 — CHAPTER XIV FISH (continued 3)
Reading edition
N.B.—The triangles of fried bread may, with advantage, be replaced by lozenges made from puff-paste, which are baked without colouration. For the Brandade use only well-soaked Icelandic or Newfoundland morue.
1028—BRANDADE DE MORUE A LA CRÈME
Follow the directions given above, but instead of oil and milk, use two-thirds pint of cream, which should be added to the morue paste by spoonfuls.
1029—MORUE A LA CRÉOLE
Finely mince an onion, and cook it gently in butter until it is of a nice golden colour. Spread it on the bottom of a little oval earthenware dish, and set three tomatoes prepared à la Provençale (No. 2268) upon it.
Poach one lb.morue; drain it as soon as ready, and flake it while clearing it of all skin and bones. Lay this flaked morue on the slices of tomato; cover it with three mild capsicums, split and broiled; sprinkle the whole with a few drops of lemon juice and one oz. of lightly-browned butter, and put the dish in the oven for a few minutes. Serve very hot.
Icelandic or Newfoundland morue may be used.
1030—CABILLAUD SALE, OR MORUE A LA HOLLANDAISE
Proceed exactly as for “Sole à la Hollandaise” (No. 829). Both kinds suit this preparation.
1031—CABILLAUD SALE, OR MORUE A L’INDIENNE
Poach one lb. of salted cod or morue, and flake it while clearing it of all skin and bones. Mix this flaked fish with two-thirds pint of Indienne sauce, and dish it in a hot timbale.
Serve some rice à l’Indienne separately.
Both kinds of fish are suited to this dish.
1032—MORUE A LA LYONNAISE
Poach one lb. of morue, and flake it as explained above. Finely mince a medium-sized onion, and toss it in butter. Also toss three medium-sized potatoes cut into roundels. Heat one oz. of butter and two tablespoonfuls of oil in a frying-pan; put therein the flaked morue and the potatoes, and toss the whole over a brisk fire for a few minutes.
When about to dish up, add a few drops of vinegar.
Dish in a hot timbale, and sprinkle the morue with a pinch of chopped parsley. Use either the Icelandic or the Newfoundland fish for this preparation.
1033—SOUFFLÉ DE MORUE
Finely pound one-quarter lb. of freshly poached and flaked morue, and add thereto, little by little, two tablespoonfuls of hot and very thick Béchamel sauce. When the paste is very smooth, season it; put into a saucepan, heat it, and add the yolks of three eggs, and four whites beaten to a stiff froth.
Put the whole into a buttered soufflé-saucepan, and cook after the manner of an ordinary soufflé. Take either Icelandic or Newfoundland morue for this dish.
1034—CHAR (Ombre-Chevalier)
The char is a fish of the salmon family, which is culinarily treated in exactly the same way as the trout. When it is large, the recipes given for salmon trout may be adapted to it, but it is mostly used small—that is to say, from five inches to ten inches long. The fishing of char is restricted chiefly to lake countries, such as Scotland and Switzerland, and it is only in season during two months of the year. Moreover, as this fish loses much of its quality in transit, its scarcity on the market will be easily understood. The lake of Zug, in Switzerland, supplies the most famous specimens, which are called Rothel by the people of the locality. The delicacy of the fish is remarkable, and in this it may vie even with the best river trout.
The char of the Scotch lakes may be treated after the same recipes as the Swiss specimens, but they are more often used in the preparation of potted char, the recipe for which is as follows:—
1035—POTTED CHAR
Cook the chars in a fine mirepoix with white wine, exactly after the manner of trout. When the fish are cooked, leave them to cool completely in their cooking-liquor. Drain them; skin them; separate their fillets, and thoroughly bone them. Set the fillets in a special earthenware pot; entirely cover them with clarified butter, and put them in a moderate oven for one quarter of an hour.
Leave them to cool until the next day, and add sufficient clarified butter to cover them with a layer one-third inch thick.
If Potted Char be left in the cool, it will keep for some considerable time.
RED MULLETS (ROUGETS)
Red mullet, especially the Mediterranean rock kind, is one of the greatest fish delicacies known; and the surname “Sea Woodcock,” which gourmets sometimes give it, is quite justified, not only by its quality, but by the fact that, except for its gills, it is generally left whole, and not even emptied.
It is best grilled.
1035a—GRILLED RED MULLET
Carefully wipe the mullet; cisel it on either side to a depth in proportion to the thickness of its flesh and at closer intervals the thicker the latter is, in order to facilitate the cooking; season it with salt and pepper; sprinkle it with a little oil and a few drops of lemon juice; spread a few slices of lemon and a few parsley stalks upon and beneath it; and let it marinade for an hour or two, turning it over frequently the while.
Twenty minutes before serving, set the red mullet on a double fish grill, and cook it over a rather fierce fire, sprinkling it often the while with its marinade. Dish and serve it as soon as it is ready, and serve a little half-melted maître-d’hôtel butter separately.
1035b—ROUGET A LA BORDELAISE
Grill or sauté the red mullet. At the same time serve a sauce Bordelaise Bonnefoy (No. 67).
1035c—ROUGET AU FENOUIL
Cisel and marinade the red mullet as directed under No. 1035a, and add a certain quantity of chopped fennel to the aromatics. Twenty minutes before serving, add two oz. of roughly-chopped raw pork fat and a little parsley to the marinade; wrap the red mullets in strong, oiled paper, together with its marinade, grill it gently, and serve it as it stands.
1035d—ROUGET A LA NIÇOISE
Grill it as directed above, and serve it with the garnish given under “Sole à la Niçoise.”
1035e—ROUGET EN PAPILLOTE
Grill and wrap it in strong, oiled paper between two layers of somewhat thick Duxelle sauce. When about to serve, put the papillote for five minutes in the oven, that it may be souffléd.
1036—WHITEBAIT
Thames whitebait, which has many points in common with the “Nonat” of the Mediterranean, is one of the riddles of ichthyology; for, while it is generally admitted that it is the fry of one of the many species of fish, its real parentage is quite unknown.
At dinners in London it usually stands as a second fish-course, and, fried after the customary manner, it constitutes a dish the delicacy of which is incomparable. Whitebait, like the nonat, are extremely fragile, and ought to be cooked as soon as they are caught. They are always served fried, and the frying-medium used in their preparation should be fresh, abundant, and just smoking when the fish are plunged into it. Previous to this operation, however, the whitebait ought to be thoroughly dredged with flour and placed in a special sieve or frying basket, either of which should be well shaken, in order to rid the fish of any superfluous flour.
They are then plunged into the smoking frying-medium, in small quantities at a time, and one minute’s stay therein suffices to render them sufficiently crisp.
Draining is the next operation, effected upon a spread piece of linen, that the fish may be easily seasoned with table-salt and cayenne, mixed. This done, the whitebait are dished upon a napkin and sent to the table with very green, fried parsley.
VARIOUS PREPARATIONS OF FISH
1037—MATELOTE AU VIN ROUGE
The fish used for the Matelote are eel, carp, tench, bream, perch, &c.
It may be prepared from one or many kinds of fish.
Put the fish, cut into sections, into a sautépan. For two lbs. of it, add one minced onion, one faggot, two cloves of garlic, one pint of red wine, a pinch of salt, and another of pepper or four peppercorns.
Set to boil; add three tablespoonfuls of heated and burnt brandy; cover the sautépan, and complete the cooking of the fish.
This done, transfer the pieces to another saucepan; strain the cooking-liquor, reduce it by a third, and thicken it with manied butter (consisting of one and one-half oz. of butter and one tablespoonful of flour), cut into small pieces.
When the leason has been properly effected, pour the resulting sauce over the pieces of fish; heat, and dish in a timbale.
1038—MATELOTE AU VIN BLANC
Prepare the fish as above, but use white wine instead of red
Pour this sauce over the fish and the garnish; dish the whole in a timbale or a deep dish, and surround with crayfish, cooked in court-bouillon, and little crusts in the shape of hearts, fried in butter.
1039—BOUILLABAISSE A LA MARSEILLAISE
The fish for Bouillabaisse are rascasse, chapon, dory, whiting, fiélas
Cut the larger fish into slices; leave the smaller ones whole, and with the exception of the whiting and the red mullet, which cook more speedily than the others, put them all into a saucepan.
For two lbs. of fish, add one small onion, the chopped white of one leek, one small, peeled, pressed and chopped tomato, two crushed cloves of garlic, a large pinch of concassed parsley, a pinch of powdered saffron, a bit of bay, a little savory and fennel, and two tablespoonfuls of oil.
Moisten the fish with just enough cold water to cover it, and season with one-third oz. of salt and a pinch of pepper per quart of water.
Set to boil, and cook over a brisk fire. At the end of eight minutes add the pieces of whiting and red mullet, and leave to cook for a further seven minutes.
Pour the liquor of the bouillabaisse over some slices of household bread lying on the bottom of a deep dish; set the fish on another dish with the sections of spiny lobster all round, and serve.
1040—QUENELLES DE BROCHET A LA LYONNAISE
Pound separately one lb. of the meat of pike, cleared of all skin and bones, and one lb. of the fat of kidney of beef, very dry, cleaned, and cut into small pieces. If desired, half of the weight of the fat of kidney of beef may be replaced by one-half lb. of beef marrow.
Put the pounded meat of the pike and the kidney fat on separate plates. Now pound one lb. of frangipan192) and add thereto, little by little, the white of four little eggs. Put the pike meat and the fat back into the mortar, and finely pound the whole until a fine, smooth paste is obtained. Rub the latter through a sieve; put the resulting purée into a basin, and work it well with a wooden spoon in order to smooth it.
With this forcemeat mould some quenelles with a spoon, and poach them in salted water.
If these quenelles are to be served with an ordinary fish sauce, put them into it as soon as they are poached and drained, and simmer them in it for ten minutes that they may swell.
If the sauce intended for them is to be thickened with egg-yolks, and buttered at the last moment, put them into a saucepan with a few tablespoonfuls of fumet, and simmer them as directed in the case of an ordinary fish sauce, taking care to keep the saucepan well covered that the concentrated steam may assist the swelling of the quenelles. In this case they are added to the sauce at the last moment.
N.B.—Slices of truffle may always be added to the sauce. The quenelles are dished either in a silver timbale, in a shallow timbale-crust, or in a fine vol-au-vent crust, in accordance with the arrangement of the menu.
1041—FISH CAKES
Fish cakes or balls, which are greatly appreciated in both England and America, are made from any boiled fish. Salted cod, however, is best suited to their preparation, and is therefore used much more often than other kinds of fish.
Flake one lb. of cooked cod, and clear it of all skin and bones; pound it with one-half lb. of freshly-cooked, floury potatoes, two tablespoonfuls of reduced Béchamel sauce, and two whole eggs. Season with salt and pepper. When the paste has been well beaten and is smooth, take it out of the mortar and divide it into portions weighing about two oz. Roll these portions into balls upon a flour-dusted mixing-board, flatten them out to the shape of thick quoits, and treat them à l’anglaise.
Fry them at the last moment in very hot fat, and dish them on a napkin with fried parsley all round.
1042—WATERZOI
In order to prepare Waterzoi, it is best, when possible, to have live fish at one’s disposal, not only because these are better able to resist the cooking process, but also owing to the fact that they are richer in gelatine in the live state.
The fish more generally used are the eel, the perch, the tench, the carp, the pike, &c.
After having scaled and emptied them, trim them and cut off their heads and tails. Cut the fish into sections; moisten these with just enough cold water to cover them; add a piece of butter, sufficient parsley roots or stalks to produce a decided taste, a few peppercorns, and some salt.
Set to cook on a brisk fire, and take care that the cooking-liquor be reduced and sufficiently thickened when the fish are cooked.
Serve in a timbale or on a dish, and send some slices of bread and butter to the table at the same time.