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Fish, Jelly For
Boil down a skate, cow-heel, or calf's foot, in three pints of water, until it is reduced to a quart Skim it carefully, strain it, and boil it again with a small onion stuck with one or two cloves, a slice of ham, a little parsley, and half an anchovy pounded in butter. When it is nicely flavoured pour it off, remove the fat, and if it is not sufficiently clear clarify it with white of egg. A glassful of sherry may be added or not. It will be fit for use when cold, and should be laid over the fish roughly. Probable cost, about 1s. for this quantity.
A savoury aspic to be chopped and heaped around cold fish. Everything here turns on getting a jelly that sets firm enough to hold a shape but is not rubbery, and on flavouring it after the gelatine has been extracted rather than before.
- The gelatine sourcesSkate is cartilaginous and gives up gelatine readily; cow-heel and calf's foot are the classic butcher's setting agents. A calf's foot is usually split and blanched first. If none is available, a well-reduced fish stock made with sole or turbot bones set with about 1 oz (four 7 g sachets, roughly 28 g) of powdered gelatine per quart should give a comparable firmness.
- Imperial measuresThree imperial pints is 60 fl oz, about 7 US cups; the finished quart is 40 fl oz, or a little under 5 US cups. Reducing by a third concentrates the gelatine, so do not top the pan up as it goes.
- The two-stage boilThe first boil extracts gelatine and takes hours, not minutes -- three to four for cow-heel or calf's foot, rather less for skate. The aromatics go in only for the second, short boil, twenty minutes or so, because onion, clove and parsley turn bitter and dull over a long extraction.
- Half an anchovy pounded in butterThis is a salt-cured anchovy from the barrel or a tinned fish, mashed to a paste with a knob of butter so it disperses. It is seasoning, not flavour you should be able to name -- half a small fish in five cups is deliberately faint.
- Skimming and defattingSkim the scum during the first boil, then chill the strained liquid so the fat sets in a solid cap you can lift off. Trying to blot fat from warm stock leaves enough behind to cloud the jelly.
- Clarifying with white of eggWhisk one or two lightly beaten whites (with their crushed shells, if you like) into the cool stock, bring it slowly to a bare tremble without stirring, and let the raft form and rise for ten minutes. Ladle the liquid out through a scalded cloth; pouring will break the raft.
- Test the setChill a teaspoonful on a saucer for a few minutes before you commit. An aspic meant to be chopped should be noticeably firmer than a dessert jelly -- it needs to hold cut edges at room temperature on a serving dish.
- Laid over the fish roughlySet the jelly in a shallow tray, turn it out and chop it with a wet knife, then pile the fragments around and over cold poached fish. The recipe does not say when the optional sherry goes in; adding it towards the end of the second boil keeps more of the aroma.
- KeepingYield is about a quart, enough to garnish a large cold salmon or turbot. Refrigerate and use within two or three days; a lightly seasoned fish jelly is a good bacterial medium once it warms.
Savoury jellies of this kind were the mortar of the Victorian cold table. Although packaged gelatine and isinglass were to be had, many cooks still drew their setting power from the collagen in feet, heels and cartilaginous fish, and Cassell's offering of skate, cow-heel or calf's foot in a single line shows how interchangeable those sources were thought to be. Aspic did two jobs at once: it sealed cold cooked fish from the air in a larder without refrigeration, and it supplied the glassy, chopped garnish that a dressed salmon or turbot was expected to wear when it came to the sideboard. The anchovy pounded in butter is a very English touch, a relative of the anchovy essences and pastes that Victorian kitchens used to give depth to fish dishes, while the clove-stuck onion and clarification with egg white are often associated with the French stockpot tradition, though both were long established in English cookery as well. The costing of about a shilling, given as a matter of course throughout Cassell's, is a reminder that the book was written for households keeping accounts as closely as they kept recipes.