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To Stew Fish
Season with salt and pepper. To a fish weighing four pounds, add very near a pint of water. When about half done, add half a pound of butter, two large spoonfuls of flour, salt, pepper, and a little thyme, and parsley. Serve with the gravy several hard-boiled eggs, sliced.
A terse nineteenth-century formula that assumes you know how a whole fish behaves in a covered pan. The instructions leave out pan, heat and time, so the notes below fill in what the original takes for granted.
- The hinge: stop earlyA four-pound whole fish in a pint of liquid is being steam-poached, not boiled, and it is done when the flesh at the thickest point flakes and pulls cleanly from the bone. Figure roughly 10 minutes per inch of thickness at a bare simmer; the recipe's "about half done" mark comes well before that.
- What fishThe original assumes a whole scaled and gutted fish. A 4 lb whole striped bass, redfish, snapper or trout works; two 2 lb fish in a wide pan is easier to handle. Thick fillets can be substituted but will cook in appreciably less time and need less water.
- The panUse a lidded pan wide enough for the fish to lie flat, an oval roaster or a large deep skillet. A pint of water in a wide pan barely covers the bottom, which is the point: the fish steams and the liquid concentrates into the gravy.
- Half a pound of butterThat is two full sticks for one fish, in line with period sauce-making but heavy by current taste. Four to six tablespoons gives a gravy with body without a slick on top; the flour is what actually thickens it.
- Adding the flour"Two large spoonfuls" is most likely tablespoons, and dropping dry flour into simmering liquid will lump. Work the flour into the softened butter first as a paste and whisk that in in pieces, or the gravy will need straining.
- Herbs"A little thyme, and parsley" is unspecified; fresh sprigs suit the dish best -- a few thyme stems and a small handful of parsley, the thyme pulled out before serving.
- The eggsSlice the hard-boiled eggs and lay them over the fish, or fold them gently into the gravy at the last moment so the yolks do not break up and cloud it. Three or four eggs is right for a fish this size.
- YieldA 4 lb whole fish serves about six as a main course, rather more if it is one dish in a larger meal.
Stewed fish of this kind belongs to the older tradition of cooking a whole fish in very little liquid and turning that liquid into the sauce. The finish of sliced hard-boiled egg is a long-standing English and American habit with poached and stewed fish, seen also in egg sauce for cod and salmon, where the egg supplied richness and a bit of visual dressing to an otherwise pale dish. The wording here, with its butter-and-flour gravy and its thyme and parsley, is the kind of short, compressed recipe found in compiled household manuals, which gathered contributions from many hands and assumed a cook who already knew how long her own fire took to bring a pan to the simmer.