Home › The Principles of Cookery › FISH SOUP (another way)
FISH SOUP (another way)
Boil down the trimmings and bones of any fish intended for this soup; put them, with three pints of fish stock, into a saucepan, and add three middle-sized onions halved, two lemons sliced, and the rind of one grated, a bunch of parsley, and some chervil. When well stewed, strain through a tamis. Have ready fillet of fish, about six pounds of sole, carp, or perch, and when fried, put them into the soup. Season it with a tea-spoonful of salt and half the quantity of mace and cayenne mixed; and add a couple of glassfuls of white wine. The soup should be good, clear, and free from fat. Simmer ten minutes, and serve with quenelles of fish. Time, one hour to stew trimmings. Sufficient for six persons.
A Victorian fish soup built in two stages: a hard-worked stock from trimmings, then fried fillets dropped in at the end. The proportions as printed are generous to the point of confusion, so read the quantities before you shop.
- The hinge: the fillets go in cookedThe fried fish is added to finished soup and simmered only ten minutes, and that is the whole point. Sole and perch will fall to shreds if held longer, so have the soup seasoned, strained and hot before the fish meets it.
- Three pints means imperial pintsCassell's measures in imperial pints of 20 fl oz, so three pints is 60 fl oz, about 7 US cups or 1.7 litres.
- Six pounds of fish is a whole-fish weightSix pounds is probably a whole-fish weight -- six pounds of trimmed fillet would swamp 1.7 litres of broth and feed far more than six. Read as about 6 lb of whole sole, carp or perch, with the frames and heads going into the stock, which leaves roughly half that weight again in fillet for the soup.
- A tamisA tammy cloth, a fine woollen straining cloth. A fine-mesh sieve lined with damp muslin does the same job and gives the clear, fat-free result the recipe insists on.
- Two lemons is a lotSliced lemons stewed a full hour give up pith bitterness as well as acid. Taste before straining; one lemon plus the grated rind stirred in near the end is closer to modern balance.
- A glassful of wineGenuinely ambiguous in books of this period, anywhere from 2 fl oz to a half-cup. Two wine glasses is often read as about half a cup total. The recipe adds it after the fillets are in; if you prefer the alcohol to cook off, add it a little earlier.
- Mace and cayenne"Half the quantity" of a teaspoon means half a teaspoon of the two mixed together, which is a great deal of cayenne if the mix leans hot. Blend them, add a little, taste.
- QuenellesPoached dumplings of pounded raw fish bound with egg and cream, shaped with two spoons and cooked separately in simmering stock. They are a garnish here, not part of the soup body, and can be omitted without harm.
- Degreasing"Free from fat" matters because the fillets are fried. Drain them well on paper, and skim the strained stock while it is hot.
Cassell's gives a fish soup built on French lines: a stock cleared through a tamis, white wine, mace, and quenelles for garnish, all conventions carried into English kitchens by way of the professional cooks who trained in the French manner through the nineteenth century. The economy is older than the technique, though, and turns on boiling down the trimmings of fish filleted at home rather than throwing them out. The choice of sole, carp or perch is a reminder that freshwater fish still had a real place on the British table at the time; carp in particular came from stocked ponds on country estates.