Turbot
Take a white fish, steam till tender, take out bones, and sprinkle with pepper and salt. For dressing, heat a pint of milk, and thicken with a quarter pound of flour; when cool, add two eggs and a quarter pound of butter, and season with onion and parsley (very little of each); put in the baking-dish a layer of fish, then a layer of sauce, till full, cover the top with bread-crumbs, and bake half an hour.- Mrs. Robert A. Liggett, Detroit, Mich.
The arrangement of fresh fruits for the table affords play for the most cultivated taste and not a little real inventive genius. Melons, oranges, and indeed all kind of fruits, are appropriate breakfast dishes; and a raised center-piece of mixed fruits furnishes a delicious dessert, and is an indispensable ornament to an elegant dinner-table. Melons should be kept on ice, so as to be thoroughly chilled when served. Clip the ends of water-melons, cut them across in halves, set up on the clipped ends on a platter, and serve the pulp only, removing it with a spoon; or, cut across in slices, and serve with rind. Nutmeg melons should be set on the blossom end, and cut in several equal pieces from the stem downward, leaving each alternate piece still attached; the others may then be loosened, and the seeds removed, when the melon is ready to serve Fruit should be carefully selected. Havana and Florida oranges are the best, but do not keep well, and on the whole, the Messina are preferable. A rough yellow skin covers the sweetest oranges, the smooth being more juicy and acid; a greenish tinge indicates that they were picked unripe. The Messina lemons, "November cut," are the best, and come into market in the spring. Freestone peaches with yellow meat are the handsomest, but not always the sweetest. California pears take the lead for flavor, the Bartlett being the best. The best winter pear is the "Winter Nellis." The "Pound" pear is the largest, but is good only for cooking. Fine-grained pears are best for eating. A pyramid of grapes made up of Malagas, Delawares, and Concords, makes a showy center-piece and a delicious dessert. The Malaga leads all foreign grapes, and comes packed in cork-dust, which is a non-conductor of heat and absorbent of moisture, and so is always in (159) good condition. Of native grapes, the Delaware keeps longest. In pine-apples the "Strawberry" is best, while the "Sugar-Loaf" ranks next, but they are so perishable that to keep even for a few days they must be cooked. When served fresh they should be cut in small squares and sprinkled with sugar. Buy cocoa-nuts cautiously in summer, heat being likely to sour the milk. In almonds, the Princess is the best variety to buy in the shell; of the shelled, the "Jordan" is the finest, though the "Sicily" is good. For cake or confectionery, the shelled are most economical. In raisins, the "Seedless" rank first for puddings and fine cakes, but the "Valencia" are cheaper, and more commonly used; for table use, loose "Muscatels" and layer raisins (of which the "London Layer" is the choicest brand) take the preference. In melons, every section has its favorite varieties, any of which make a wholesome and luscious dessert dish. Sliced fruits or berries are more attractive and palatable sprinkled with sugar about an hour before serving, and then with pounded ice just before sending to the table. An apple-corer, a cheap tin tube, made by any tinner, is indispensable in preparing apples for cooking. They are made in two sizes, one for crab-apples and the other for larger varieties.
If the market is depended upon select the freshest berries; and sometimes it will be found that the largest are not the sweetest. If clean, and not gritty, do not wash them, but pick over carefully, place first a layer of berries then sprinkle sugar, and so on; set away in a cool place, and just before serving sprinkle with pounded ice. If they must be washed, take a dish of cold, soft water, pour a few in, and with the hand press them down a few times, untit they look clean, then hull them. Repeat the process till all are hulled, sugar and prepare as above. Never drain in a colander. The French serve large fine strawberries without being hulled. Pulverized sugar is passed, the strawberry is taken by the hull with the thumb and finger, dipped into the sugar, and eaten. When berries are left, scald for a few minutes; too much cooking spoils the flavor. Some think many of the sour berries are improved by slightly cooking them with a little sugar before serving. If a part of the berries are badly bruised, gritty, etc. (but not sour or bitter), scald, and drain them through a fine sieve without pressing them. Sweeten the juice and serve as a dressing for puddings, short-cakes, etc., or can for winter use.
A Great Lakes version of turbot à la crème: no turbot involved, just cooked white fish layered with a very thick milk sauce and baked. The sauce is the whole dish, and it is stiffer than a modern cook expects.
- The sauce is a panade, not a béchamelThe sauce is a panade, not a béchamel -- a quarter pound of flour (about 1 scant cup) to a pint of milk gives something far stiffer than a pourable sauce, closer to a croquette panada than to a modern white sauce. The thickness looks deliberate han out out of it — it sets around the fish rather than running out — but cook the flour and milk together over low heat, stirring hard, or it will taste raw and pasty.
- Cool before the eggs"When cool" is the one instruction that matters. Two eggs beaten into hot paste will scramble and the layers will turn grainy. Let it drop to warm-to-the-touch, then beat in the eggs and the butter.
- Weights to volumesA quarter pound of butter is half a cup, exactly one standard stick; a quarter pound of flour is roughly 1 cup by modern scoop, better weighed at 113–115 g. A pint is 2 cups.
- OvenNo temperature is given because the book assumes a wood range. Bake at 350°F for the specified half hour, until the crumbs are browned and the center is hot through.
- The fish'A white fish' is generic, though in 1870s Detroit it would most often have meant Great Lakes whitefish. Any firm, mild white fillet works — cod, haddock, pollock, halibut. Steam only until it flakes, five to eight minutes for fillets; it gets a second cooking in the oven and overcooked fish turns cottony.
- Onion and parsley"Very little of each" is good advice with this much flour and butter, but grate or mince the onion finely and cook it in a little of the butter first — raw onion in a thirty-minute bake stays sharp and crunchy.
- CrumbsDry bread crumbs alone will scorch before the dish is hot. Toss them with a tablespoon of melted butter, or the top will be dusty rather than crisp.
- YieldThe recipe gives no fish quantity; a pint of milk's worth of sauce with roughly one to one and a half pounds of fish will fill about a 1½-quart dish and serve four to six as a main course. Season the fish itself well; the sauce is bland by design.
Turbot is a large North Atlantic flatfish, prized in Europe and effectively unobtainable in the inland American market of the 1870s, so "turbot" in a book like this names a manner rather than a fish \\\ traditionally, flaked fish baked in a thick cream sauce with crumbs on top, a convention as much at home in American community cookbooks as in French restaurant cooking. Mrs. Liggett's version, sent in from Detroit, was most likely made with Great Lakes whitefish, then landed in enormous quantities and cheap enough to be a weekday food. Books of this kind were assembled from exactly this sort of signed contribution, which is why the same page can run a fish recipe straight into several hundred words on choosing Messina oranges and building a pyramid of Malaga grapes: the fruit notes are a separate marketing essay that happens to begin where the recipe ends.