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Planked Smelts
Crisco a plank quite generously, and place upon it smelts that have been split, cleaned, and seasoned, and squeeze liberal amount of lemon juice over them. Arrange in form of large fish shape, and garnish with potato roses put on with pastry tube and sprinkle with tiny bits of Crisco and finely chopped parsley. Place plank in oven and cook until potatoes are slightly browned. Garnish before taking to table with sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, dressed in vinegar, between potato roses.
A planked fish supper of the 1910s, written as advertising copy for a then-new shortening. It works as written, but the recipe assumes you already know how to bake and pipe duchesse potatoes and gives no oven temperature at all.
- The plankAn untreated hardwood plank, typically oak, hickory or maple, an inch or more thick and seasoned by oiling and heating before first use. Do not substitute a thin grilling plank meant for soaking and smoking on a barbecue; those char through in a hot oven. Warming the plank empty for a few minutes before the fish goes on helps keep it from sticking.
- "Crisco a plank"Crisco is hydrogenated vegetable shortening, and this book exists to sell it. Any neutral fat does the same job here; butter is better tasting on fish, though it browns faster.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A hot oven, in the region of 425-450F, is a reasonable modern reading: the smelts set and the piped potato takes colour before the fish overcooks.
- The potatoes are the hidden step"Potato roses put on with pastry tube" means duchesse potato: hot mashed potato enriched with egg yolk and butter, stiff enough to hold a piped shape. Plain mash slumps. Have it made and warm before the plank goes near the oven.
- TimingSmelts are small and thin. Split and boned, they need roughly 8-10 minutes at that heat, whole ones a little more. The recipe times the dish by the potatoes browning, which is close but can run long; check the fish first and finish the potatoes under the broiler if need be.
- Buying smeltsSold frozen in most places now, often already cleaned. Rainbow smelt commonly run around 6-8 inches; count 4-6 per person as a main course. Smelt small enough are often eaten bones and all, though this recipe calls for them split and cleaned.
- The garnish goes on at the tableTomatoes and cucumbers dressed in vinegar are added after the plank comes out of the oven, tucked between the potato roses. They are raw salad, not something to bake.
- Yield and serviceA plank arranged in "large fish shape" suits two to four. The plank is carried to the table and served from, which is the whole point of the presentation; set it on a heatproof board or a folded cloth.
A Calendar of Dinners was a Procter & Gamble publication written to demonstrate Crisco, the hydrogenated cottonseed shortening the company launched in 1911, which is why the fat is named as a brand in nearly every line. The dish itself is older than the shortening: cooking fish on a hardwood board in front of or over a fire is generally traced to Native American practice along the Atlantic coast and the Great Lakes, and by the late nineteenth century "planked shad" and "planked whitefish" were fixtures of American club and hotel menus, admired as much for arriving at the table on their own smoking board as for their flavour. Smelts, cheap and abundant in spring runs, brought the fashionable planked presentation within reach of an ordinary household, and a piped potato border was a common way of dressing up a planked dish of the period.