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Cod Sound, Boiled
Cod sounds are much liked by many persons, and may always be procured salted. They are convenient when kept in store in country houses, though, on account of the necessary soaking, they cannot be served in a hurry. Put them into plenty of cold water, and let them remain in it all night, then scrape and rub off the dark skin with a cloth, wash them thoroughly, and put them into a stewpan with equal parts of milk and water, and boil them very gently until tender. Be careful to remove the scum as it rises. Serve them on a hot napkin, with egg sauce. Time to boil, three-quarters of an hour. Probable cost, 6d. per pound. One pound will be enough for four persons.
A straightforward Victorian fish dish whose main obstacle today is sourcing rather than technique. Everything hinges on the soak: salted sounds that go into the pan still salty cannot be rescued later.
- What a cod sound isThe sound is the swim bladder that runs along the backbone inside the fish, not the roe or the cheek. Cooked, it is gelatinous and faintly chewy rather than flaky, closer in texture to tripe or to the fish maw sold dried in Chinese groceries.
- SourcingSalted cod sounds were once a grocery staple and are now a specialty item, most likely to turn up where salt-fish traditions persist, such as Newfoundland or Scandinavia, or in Portuguese and Chinese shops. Dried fish maw is the nearest widely available equivalent; follow the soaking instructions on the packet, which may be longer than the overnight given here.
- The soakOvernight in plenty of cold water is a minimum for heavily salted sounds. Change the water two or three times and taste a scrap of the raw sound before cooking; if it is still salty, keep soaking, as the brief simmer in milk and water will not draw out enough salt to rescue it.
- Scraping the skinThe dark membrane comes away more easily after soaking, and a coarse cloth or the back of a knife does the job. Any left behind stays tough and tastes strongly of the salting.
- Milk and waterEqual parts milk and water keeps the sounds pale and softens the residual salt. Keep it at a bare tremble, as the recipe's 'very gently' indicates; a rolling boil curdles the milk and toughens the sounds rather than letting them soften.
- The timingThree-quarters of an hour, as the recipe gives, is realistic for this cut. Sounds are largely connective tissue and need long, gentle heat to turn tender; test with a knife point rather than the clock.
- Egg sauceConventionally a plain white sauce with hard-boiled eggs chopped into it; the book's own egg sauce recipe would be found elsewhere in the volume. Some of the cooking liquid can replace part of the milk if it is not too salty.
- ServingThe hot napkin is a folded linen cloth on the dish, used to absorb liquid from boiled fish; a warmed plate does the same work. A pound serves four as the book says, but as a first course rather than a main by modern portions.
Cod sounds belong to the thrifty edge of the great North Atlantic cod trade, in which the body of the fish was split and salted for export while the offal, tongues, cheeks and sounds were salted separately and sold cheap. The sounds also had a second, industrial life: they were one source of isinglass, the collagen used for clarifying beer and wine and for making glue and jellies, though the finest isinglass came from sturgeon bladders and cod sounds yielded a cheaper, inferior grade. Cassell's note that they keep in store and suit a country house is the point: salted sounds were a larder staple, ready for a day when the fishmonger's cart did not come. The taste for them survived longest where the fishery itself did, and cod tongues and sounds are still eaten in Newfoundland, often fried with pork scraps rather than boiled in milk.