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Fish, Marinade For
Fry in butter half a dozen shallots, three middle-sized onions, a couple of carrots, a bunch of parsley, a bundle of sweet herbs, and a clove of garlic. Cut the carrots, shallots, and onions small; pick and mince the herbs. When they have simmered in the butter five or six minutes, pour in any light wine or cider--about three pints--and add a dessert-spoonful of peppercorns, the same of allspice, and two cloves. When the mixture has simmered for one hour and a half, strain for use. Insipid fish boiled in this marinade will acquire a flavour of a very agreeable kind, and the bones of small fish are rendered soft and eatable if gently stewed in it. Large fish should be cut into steaks; and if, after use, the marinade be carefully strained, it will serve several times. The expense, too, may be much lessened by using diluted vinegar, with the addition of a table-spoonful of Worcester sauce, and the same of essence of anchovy and ketchup, in place of light wine or cider. (See also MARINADE FOR FISH.)
This is a court-bouillon rather than a marinade in the modern sense: an aromatic wine or cider broth that insipid fish is poached in, not steeped in beforehand. A few of the measures and ingredient names need translating.
- Yield and vesselThree pints in imperial measure is about 1.7 litres, enough to poach a few pounds of fish steaks in a wide pan. After a 90-minute simmer and straining you will be left with rather less, so top up with water or more wine if the fish is not covered.
- Dessert-spoonfulTwo teaspoons. A dessert-spoon sits between a teaspoon and a tablespoon in Victorian measure. Two teaspoons each of whole peppercorns and whole allspice berries in this volume is assertive but not excessive, since the liquid is strained.
- Sweet herbs and the bundle"Sweet herbs" means the mild kitchen herbs: thyme, marjoram, savory, a bay leaf. Tie them and the parsley in a bundle if you like, though the recipe tells you to mince them, which extracts more flavour and makes straining essential.
- Ketchup and essence of anchovyIn the cheap version, "ketchup" means mushroom or walnut ketchup, a thin dark savoury sauce, not tomato ketchup. Essence of anchovy is closest to modern anchovy paste or Italian colatura; the paste is the more concentrated of the two, so start with less than the spoonful called for and taste.
- "Diluted vinegar" is genuinely vagueThe book gives no ratio. Malt vinegar of the period was broadly comparable in strength to the modern product, though strengths varied, so a workable reading is one part vinegar to three or four parts water; taste before committing three pints of it to a fish.
- The softened bonesSmall whole fish left to stew gently in an acidic liquid do end up with edible bones. It takes long, slow cooking at a bare simmer; it will not happen at a poaching temperature held for ten minutes.
- Cooking the fish itselfOnce the marinade is strained and back on the heat, keep it just below a simmer. Many cooks take fish steaks off at 130-140F at the centre, though official guidance is 145F; usually 8-12 minutes for a one-inch steak. The long cooking in the recipe applies to the aromatics, not the fish.
- Reusing the liquidThe advice to strain and keep it for several uses assumes a cold larder and daily cooking. Strain it, chill it fast, refrigerate, and bring it back to a full boil before each reuse; discard it after a few days or if it smells at all sour beyond the vinegar.
The technique here is the same family as Mediterranean escabeche and Anglo-Jewish fried fish in vinegar, where acid both flavours the fish and softens its small bones. The frankly stated purpose is worth noting: the flavour of "insipid fish" was a standing problem for inland Victorian households buying whatever arrived by rail. So is the frugality of the closing sentence. Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery, compiled for middle-class kitchens in the 1870s, routinely offers a wine version and then a cheaper one built from the bottled sauces of the era, and Worcester sauce, anchovy essence and mushroom ketchup were exactly the shelf-stable savoury shortcuts that a cook without three pints of spare claret reached for.