Steamed Fish
Place tail of fish in its mouth and secure it, lay on a plate, pour over it a half pint of vinegar, seasoned with pepper and salt; let stand an hour in the refrigerator, pour off the vinegar, and put in a steamer over boiling water; steam twenty minutes, or longer if the fish is very large (when done the meat easily parts from the bone); drain well, and serve on a napkin garnished with curled parsley. Serve drawn butter in a boat. -Mrs. E. S. Miller.
A whole fish, briefly acidulated and steamed rather than boiled — the method that keeps a delicate freshwater fish from falling apart. Two things in the original need translating: the vinegar quantity and what "drawn butter" meant in 1877.
- The hinge: steam, do not boilThe point of the recipe is that the fish never touches the water. Use a rack or steamer insert set above vigorously boiling water in a covered pot, and keep the lid on so the chamber stays full of steam.
- Half a pint of vinegarOne cup. Cider vinegar is the likeliest thing a Midwestern kitchen would have had. It firms and whitens the surface of the flesh; the recipe's hour is what it calls for, and there is no reason to extend it, since prolonged acid contact will begin to opaque the outer flesh.
- Drawn butterNot simply melted butter. In American books of this period drawn butter is a light flour-thickened butter sauce — roughly a tablespoon each of butter and flour cooked together, thinned with a cup of hot water or fish broth, then finished with more butter off the heat. A "boat" is a sauceboat.
- Timing and donenessTwenty minutes suits a fish of about 1 1/2 to 2 lb; a 3-4 lb fish wants 30-40 minutes. The book's own test is the reliable one, but check early — flesh that parts from the bone at the thickest point is done, and steam overcooks quickly past that stage. An instant-read thermometer should show about 145F at the backbone.
- Tail in the mouthPurely presentation, and it needs a round fish with the head on — trout, whitefish, small bass, pike. Curve the body, push the tail into the mouth and secure it with a toothpick or a loop of kitchen twine. Nothing is lost by skipping it and laying the fish out straight.
- Serving on a napkinA folded linen napkin on the platter was the usual period presentation for a steamed or boiled fish, and it takes up the water such a fish gives off. It is worth doing, or at least draining the fish thoroughly on a rack, or the sauce will be diluted on the plate.
- Choice of fishFreshwater fish with fine flakes suits this best. Firm ocean fish also works, but oily fish such as mackerel or salmon gains little from the vinegar step.
- YieldA 2 lb whole fish serves two generously or three modestly as part of a larger meal.
Buckeye Cookery (1877), compiled from Ohio housekeepers' contributions, was written for kitchens supplied largely by local rivers and lakes rather than by a fishmonger — Great Lakes whitefish, pike, perch and bass. Steaming was one recommended treatment for such fish, on the grounds that boiling leached flavour and broke up delicate flesh. The vinegar soak is an old European practice, generally explained at the time as keeping the flesh white and firm, and something similar survives in the French truite au bleu, where vinegar poured over a very fresh trout turns the skin blue. The tail-in-mouth arrangement, the folded napkin and the curled parsley belong to the same period's enthusiasm for elaborate table presentation, when a whole fish was expected to arrive looking composed rather than merely cooked.