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COD (a I'Espagnole)
Take one or two slices of cod about an inch in thickness, or the tail end of the cod, remove the skin, dredge a little flour over the fish, and fry it in hot butter or lard until nicely browned. Take it out gently with an egg-slice, drain it, and put it into a saucepan with as much good brown gravy boiling as will cover it. Add a little salt and cayenne, the juice of half a lemon, a lump of sugar, an onion stuck with two cloves, and half a tumblerful of port. Simmer very softly till the fish is sufficiently cooked; take it out, place it on a hot dish, strain the gravy, thickening it with a little browned butter, and serve immediately. Claret may be substituted for the port, if preferred, or the wine may be omitted altogether, and the sauce flavoured with ketchup. Time, altogether, half an hour. Probable cost of cod, when in full season, 6d. to 8d. per pound. Sufficient, two slices for four persons.
A Victorian brown-sauce treatment for cod, closer to a braise than a poach. The whole thing hangs on how briefly the fish sits in the gravy.
- Cut the simmering shortThe stated "half an hour" is the total working time, not the cooking time. Inch-thick cod steaks need 8 to 10 minutes at a bare simmer once they are already browned; past that the flakes separate into cotton wool. Pull them at about 130-140F at the bone.
- Brown gravyThis means a proper reduced brown stock or sauce espagnole, not gravy from a packet. A cup or so of well-reduced beef or veal stock, glossy enough to coat a spoon, will carry the port and lemon. Thin stock gives a watery, sour result.
- Half a tumblerfulA Victorian tumbler ran roughly 8 to 10 fl oz, so this is about 1/2 cup of port. The figure is genuinely elastic; start with 1/3 cup, since port reduced in a small volume of sauce turns cloying fast.
- A lump of sugarLumps of the period were nipped from a sugar loaf and irregular in size, so read it as roughly a teaspoon of granulated sugar. It is there to balance the lemon juice and the cayenne, not to sweeten the dish.
- Egg-sliceA thin perforated spatula of the same family as the fish slice. Any wide slotted turner works; the point is to lift a browned steak clear without breaking it.
- Browned butter for thickeningNot modern beurre noisette but browned flour cooked in butter, a small dark roux whisked into the strained sauce off the boil. A teaspoon each of butter and flour is enough for a cup of gravy.
- KetchupIn Cassell's day this meant mushroom or walnut ketchup, a thin salty brown condiment. If you take the no-wine option, use mushroom ketchup or a dash of Worcestershire rather than tomato ketchup, which will make the sauce sweet and pink.
- YieldTwo inch-thick steaks feeding four assumes a Victorian multi-course dinner. Count on two servings, or three with plenty of potato alongside.
The name points to sauce espagnole, the brown mother sauce codified in early nineteenth-century French kitchens and carried into British cookery books as "Spanish sauce" or simply "brown gravy" — the Spanish connection is traditional and much disputed, usually explained by the Spanish ham or tomatoes said to have gone into early versions. What is more telling here is the pairing itself: an English household book of the 1870s and 80s treating cheap, abundant cod, priced at sixpence or eightpence a pound, to the fortified wine and glazed brown sauce of restaurant cooking. The recipe's willingness to drop the wine for ketchup shows how the book worked — one method, priced and graded for whatever the reader could actually afford that week.