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Boiled Halibut - Cold
Have a piece of Halibut cut weighing two and one-half pounds. Tie in a square of cheese cloth (to prevent scum from settling on the flesh of fish). Cover with boiling water to which add salt and vinegar or lemon juice; the acid preserves the whiteness of the fish. Boil until the flesh leaves the bones (about thirty-five minutes). Drain and remove from cheese cloth. Pick out bones and remove skin. Place in a vessel that will preserve the shape of fish, chill and dispose fish on a cold serving platter on a bed of garden cress. a cucumber basket at intervals (one for each guest), and serve with
A straightforward court-bouillon poach served cold, from an era when a cold fish platter was standard warm-weather Sunday fare. The text breaks off mid-sentence at the sauce; a cold boiled halibut of this kind was almost always sent to table with mayonnaise, tartare or a green sauce.
- Do not actually boil itA rolling boil shreds halibut and squeezes out moisture, and thirty-five minutes will leave a two-and-a-half-pound piece dry and cottony. Bring the water to the boil, add the fish, then hold it at a bare shiver — 170-180F — and cook until the thickest part reaches 130-135F, roughly 10 minutes per inch of thickness. It will carry over a few degrees off the heat.
- The cheeseclothThis is genuinely worth doing, and not only for scum. A wrapped piece can be lifted out whole without breaking, which matters when the fish is to be presented in one shaped mass. Leave long tails of cloth at each end as handles, or use a poaching rack.
- The acidFor a pot holding about 3 quarts of water, roughly 2 tablespoons salt and 2-3 tablespoons vinegar or the juice of a lemon. The acid firms the surface proteins and keeps the flesh white; too much will make the fish taste pickled.
- "A vessel that will preserve the shape"Pack the boned, skinned fish into a loaf pan or shallow mold, press lightly with a plate and a light weight, and chill at least 4 hours or overnight. Pressed and thoroughly chilled, it sets into a sliceable block.
- Garden cressNot watercress. Garden cress (Lepidium sativum), sold now mostly as a sprouting seed or as "cress" in punnets, is peppery and fine-leaved. Watercress or a mix of young mustard greens stands in acceptably.
- Cucumber basketsA period garnish: a thick section of cucumber with the flesh scooped out and a handle of rind left standing, filled with diced cucumber dressed in vinegar, or with the sauce itself. One per guest, as written, so the number depends on the size of the table.
- The missing sauceChoose a cold emulsion — mayonnaise thinned with lemon, tartare, or a herbed green mayonnaise. Any of these fits the book's period and the dish.
- Yield and storageTwo and a half pounds of halibut on the bone gives somewhere around 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 pounds of picked flesh, enough for six as a main course on a hot day. Keep it refrigerated and eat within two days.
Cold boiled fish belongs to the summer end of the Victorian and Edwardian dinner repertoire, when a Sunday table had to be set in a hot kitchen and a dish that could be cooked in the cool of the morning and dressed at the last minute was a practical mercy. Halibut suited the job better than most: a large, firm, white-fleshed flatfish that holds together in the pot and sets up into a block that slices cleanly when chilled. The technique here — cheesecloth wrap, acidulated water, press and chill, garnish with cress and carved cucumber — is standard nineteenth-century cookery-school practice, the kind of thing that passed into household manuals like this one. The elaborate garnishing is not decoration for its own sake; a cold platter had to look composed because it arrived at table already assembled, with no steam or sizzle to do the work. 52 Sunday Dinners organizes itself by numbered Sunday dinners.