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Fish, Fricandelles
Pour milk or wine on the crumb of a French roll, enough to soak it. Cut one pound of cooked or raw fish without skin or bone, and a couple of anchovies, into small bits. Season with mace, cayenne, and nutmeg. Beat the yolks of two eggs with the roll, and then add the fish. Mix a little cream, and warm it carefully. Have ready a buttered mould, fill it with the fish, and cover with bread-crumbs. Make hot in the oven, and brown with a salamander or red-hot shovel.
A Victorian fish pudding built on a bread panade, baked in a mould and glazed at the last minute. The two things to watch are the egg-and-cream mixture, which must be warmed and not cooked, and the browning step, which is simply a broiler.
- The roll"The crumb of a French roll" means the soft interior of a crusty white roll with the crust cut away; a small roll will give roughly a cup of loose crumb. The original specifies only "enough to soak it" — around 1/2 cup of milk or dry white wine will do. Nothing is squeezed out; the whole soaked mass goes in as the binder.
- Seasoning amountsThe original gives none. A pinch of ground mace, a pinch of grated nutmeg and a small pinch of cayenne suit a pound of fish; the anchovies supply most of the salt, so taste before adding more.
- AnchoviesNineteenth-century "a couple of anchovies" would have meant two whole salted fish, which is closer to four modern fillets than two. Modern oil-packed fillets are assertive, so start with two, mashed, and add more to taste; rinse salt-packed ones first.
- Raw or cooked fishBoth work, but not identically. Cooked fish should be flaked and folded in gently at the end; raw fish — haddock, cod, hake — should be chopped fine so it sets through in the same time as the custard.
- "Warm it carefully"This is the hinge. The cream, eggs and panade are warmed only to take the chill off and loosen the mixture, over low heat and stirring constantly. Let it reach a simmer and the yolks curdle, and the baked pudding turns grainy and weeps.
- Mould and ovenA buttered 1-quart charlotte mould, a small loaf tin, or four ramekins. The original gives no oven setting at all, only "make hot in the oven"; a moderate oven of about 350F works, and standing the mould in a roasting tin of hot water (not called for in the original) guards the egg. Reckon on 25 to 35 minutes for ramekins, 40 to 50 for a single mould, until set to the centre and 145F on a thermometer.
- Salamander or red-hot shovelA salamander was an iron plate heated in the fire and held over food to colour the top. A broiler on high for two or three minutes does the same job; watch it, as buttered crumbs go from gold to black quickly.
- YieldAbout four servings as a first course, or two or three as a light supper dish. A caper or shrimp sauce suits it, though the original suggests no accompaniment.
Fricandelle normally means a small fried patty of chopped meat, a word that reached English cookery through French and Dutch usage; it is often linked to the veal fricandeau, though the connection is not settled. Applying it to a fish mixture baked in a mould stretches the term to cover any forcemeat shaped and cooked as one piece. The technique underneath it is the panade: bread soaked in liquid and beaten with egg yolk, a standard Victorian binder for quenelles, forcemeats and fish puddings long before food processors made purées easy. The recipe's allowance of cooked fish suits a household using up what was left from a previous meal, and the anchovy is doing the work that Worcestershire sauce or a stock cube would do in a later kitchen. The instruction to brown with "a salamander or red-hot shovel" points to a kitchen whose top heat came from the range fire rather than a gas grill.