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BRILL, BRAISED (a l'Amiral)
Cut the fins and tail off a good-sized brill, place it on a bed of sliced carrot, turnip, and onion, in a fish kettle, dark skin downward. Moisten with a half pint of Chablis and white stock, season with salt, cover and cook over the fire until tender. Prepare twelve large oysters and twelve mussels, beard the oysters, egg and crumb them in white bread-crumbs, and fry them in deep fat. Egg and crumb the mussels in toasted bread-crumbs, and fry likewise. Take up the fish, place it on a dish, arrange the oysters and mussels alternately round the sides, and sauce over with a cardinal sauce. Serve with a boat of the same sauce and sliced lemons. Price, 10d. to 1s. 2d. per pound.
A late-Victorian braised flatfish dressed in the grand style: the fish is barely poached on a vegetable bed, then ringed with fried shellfish and coated in a scarlet sauce. Nothing here is difficult, but the fish is the whole dish and it overcooks in a moment.
- The hinge: cook the brill gently and brieflyA whole brill of a few pounds will want something like 20-25 minutes at a bare tremble rather than a boil, and it is done when the flesh parts cleanly from the backbone. Left "over the fire" unattended it collapses into the vegetables.
- Brill and substitutesBrill is still sold in Europe but is uncommon in North American markets. Turbot, halibut or a large plaice or sole behave the same way; a thick fillet works if you cannot get a whole fish, though you lose the presentation.
- Fish kettleA long lidded pan with a perforated rack. A deep roasting tin covered tightly with foil, the fish resting on a sling of doubled cheesecloth, does the job and lets you lift the fish out intact.
- Half a pint of liquidA British half-pint is 10 fl oz, about 1 1/4 cups, split between Chablis and stock. Use a dry unoaked white and a light fish stock; the fish is braised, not submerged, so the liquid should come no more than a third of the way up.
- Cardinal sauceA fish velouté or béchamel finished with cream, lobster butter and a little lobster coral for the red colour, seasoned with cayenne. Reduce the braising liquid and work it into the sauce rather than discarding it.
- Bearding the oystersTrimming off the dark frill around the edge. Mussels also need their beard (the tough byssus thread) pulled away, and they must be steamed open and shelled before they are crumbed.
- Two crumbs, two coloursWhite crumbs for the oysters and toasted crumbs for the mussels, which with the alternating arrangement gives a pale-and-dark border round the fish. Fry at 350-375F; the mussels are already cooked from steaming and need only long enough for the coating to set, while the oysters are raw and should be fried through, as both turn rubbery fast.
- YieldA whole brill of the size implied, with the shellfish garnish, would serve about four to six as a main course.
- The price lineCassell's quoted market prices per pound for its readers. It is a shopping note, not part of the method.
Brill was the workaday cousin of turbot in Victorian Britain — similar in shape and texture, cheaper by a good margin, and often said to be the economical way to serve a grand flatfish. The suffix à l'amiral belongs to the classical French repertoire of garnishes that Cassell's readers were expected to recognise, and it generally signals a fish dressed with shellfish and a crustacean-flavoured sauce; the closely related sauce cardinal is traditionally said to take its name from the ecclesiastical red that lobster coral lends it. The dish is characteristic of the book's ambitions: a domestic English kitchen following the shape of restaurant service, complete with the sauce boat and sliced lemon, and with a per-pound market price appended so the cook could tell whether the fishmonger was fair.