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COD (au Gratin)
Take the remains of cold cod, remove the skin and bones, and break the flesh into convenient-sized pieces. Butter a pie-dish rather thickly; place in it alternate layers of cod and oyster sauce until the dish is full, flavouring each layer with salt, cayenne, and a little powdered mace. Strew fine bread-crumbs over all, and put two or three little pieces of butter here and there. Bake for about half an hour. Sufficient, a small dishful for two or three persons.
A leftovers dish from the era when a large boiled cod was a standard Friday or dinner-party centrepiece and the cook was expected to do something with what came back from the table. Two details need translating before you start.
- "Oyster sauce" is not the bottled kindIn a British book of this vintage oyster sauce means a white sauce or melted-butter sauce enriched with the oysters' liquor and studded with bearded oysters, not the dark Cantonese fermented condiment. Substituting the modern bottle will give you something quite different and much saltier.
- Quantities for the sauceThe recipe gives none, and does not say whether the sauce is left over or made fresh. As a working figure, something like a pint (2 cups) of oyster sauce with 8-12 small oysters suits a dish for three; the layers should be generously wet, since the fish is already cooked and contributes no liquid.
- Oven temperatureNothing is stated; the book gives no oven description at all. Around 350F/180C for the specified half hour brings the dish through and browns the crumbs without drying the fish. If the top is pale at the end, finish it briefly under the grill.
- Pie-dishA Victorian pie-dish is typically an oval earthenware dish with sloping sides, made in various sizes; the recipe calls only for 'a small dishful for two or three persons'. Any shallow gratin dish of that sort of capacity works; depth matters more than shape, because you want three or four thin layers rather than one thick one.
- MacePowdered mace is the outer coating of the nutmeg, milder and more floral than nutmeg itself. Ground nutmeg used sparingly is the nearest substitute, but use noticeably less.
- Fine bread-crumbsThese are dried crumbs, made from stale crust baked hard and sieved, not soft fresh crumbs. Dried crumbs brown evenly and stay crisp; fresh ones soak up the sauce and go pasty.
- The hinge: do not overbakeThe cod is already fully cooked, so the half hour is about heating through and browning, not cooking fish. Left longer it turns fibrous and squeezes water into the sauce. Take it out as soon as the surface is coloured and the edges bubble.
- Cayenne and saltBoiled cod is usually salted in the water and the oyster sauce carries salt as well. Taste the sauce before seasoning the layers, and keep the cayenne to a pinch per layer.
Gratin cookery of this sort belongs to the Victorian economy of the second appearance: a large fish or joint was served whole at one meal and reworked into something respectable at the next, an obligation pressed on cooks by domestic writers from Eliza Acton onwards. Cod and oysters were a natural pairing in nineteenth-century Britain simply because both were cheap and abundant — oysters are generally said to have remained working-class food in London for much of the century, and oyster sauce was one of the standard accompaniments to boiled cod or turbot, which is precisely why a household would have some left over. The Victorian cookery compendia aimed at middle-class kitchens print these short reworking recipes with no more preamble than "take the remains of", trusting the cook to know what boiled cod and its sauce looked like the day before.