Clean and cut a shad into large slices; sprinkle with salt, pepper and ginger. Put on to boil with 1 sliced onion, 1 bay-leaf, a few cloves, 2 sprigs of parsley and ½ cup of vinegar. When done, remove the fish to a platter; add ½ cup of raisins, 1 tablespoonful of butter, ½ cup of pounded almonds, 1 glass of wine, 1 tablespoonful of brown sugar and a pinch of cinnamon. Let boil until done and pour over the fish. Garnish with sliced lemon and sprigs of parsley and serve cold.
A sweet-sour poached fish served cold, of the kind that was made on Friday for Saturday eating. The original assumes a cook who knows how much liquid to use and how briefly fish needs to cook; both need spelling out.
- The liquid is unstatedYou are told to add ½ cup of vinegar but never how much water. Use just enough water to barely cover the slices in a wide pan, roughly 2 cups for a 3 lb fish, and treat the vinegar as seasoning within that.
- Cook it briefly"When done" for thick shad steaks means 8 to 10 minutes at a bare simmer, not a rolling boil. Push the timing further and the flesh shreds when you lift it out.
- Reduce the sauce, don't boil it hardOnce the fish is out, the second "let boil until done" means reducing the spiced liquid with the raisins, almonds, wine and sugar until it lightly coats a spoon — 10 to 15 minutes. Ground almonds can catch, so stir.
- A glass of wineIn books of this period a wine glass is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz (¼ cup), though usage varies. A sweet red or a white with some body suits the raisin-and-cinnamon direction.
- Pounded almondsBlanched almonds ground in a food processor, not almond flour, which is too fine to give the sauce any texture. Half a cup by volume is roughly 2 oz.
- Shad and its bonesAmerican shad is intricately boned and now under harvest restrictions in parts of its Atlantic range; it may not be at your counter. Bluefish, mackerel, carp or salmon steaks all take this treatment well.
- Why it setsWhy it may set -- Chilled overnight, the poaching liquid can set to a light jelly from the gelatin in the fish's bones and skin. Spoon it over the fish while still warm so it sets around the slices.
- YieldA 3 lb fish cut into steaks serves four to six as a first course or light main, with bread.
Cold sweet-and-sour fish with raisins, almonds, vinegar and cinnamon is one of the most durable dishes in Jewish cooking, and its logic is the Sabbath: no fire may be lit on Saturday, so the fish is cooked Friday and eaten cold, the vinegar and sugar acting as much as preservatives as flavourings. The combination of dried fruit, ground nuts and sour liquid is generally traced to medieval Sephardic and Italian kitchens, and travelled north into German and Central European Jewish cooking, where it survives as the "sweet and sour fish" of countless community cookbooks. Shad is the American contribution: it ran up the Atlantic rivers in enormous spring numbers into the early twentieth century and was, at least while the runs held, cheap enough to be a common fish.