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Flounders, Stewed
Wash and trim the fish; put them into a stewpan with about a pint of some good gravy, a glass of claret or port, a small tea-spoonful of all-spice and black pepper mixed, three cloves, or a little mace. Stew the fish in this mixture till done; then remove them, and thicken the gravy, adding a little chilli vinegar, essence of anchovy, pepper, and salt. Strain, and send it to table poured over the fish. Time to stew the flounders, ten to twenty minutes; to boil gravy, eight to ten minutes.
A Victorian braise for a flat fish, sauced with fortified wine and anchovy. The whole thing hinges on not overcooking the flounder in the ten to twenty minutes the book allows.
- Cooking timeWhole flounder of ordinary market size (about 12 oz) is done in 6-8 minutes in barely simmering liquid; fillets need 3-4. The book's twenty minutes assumes a larger fish than most fishmongers now sell, and will leave fillets falling apart.
- Trim the fish"Wash and trim" in period usage generally covers gutting and taking off fins and tail; the recipe does not mention head or skin, so leave or remove them as you prefer. Scoring the thicker side twice helps it cook evenly.
- A pint of good gravyAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so about 2 1/2 cups. "Good gravy" here is a light brown stock, not thickened meat gravy; a well-reduced veal or chicken stock works, and fish stock makes a cleaner sauce.
- A glass of claret or portA wineglassful of the period is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz, though glasses varied. Claret means dry red Bordeaux; port gives a distinctly sweeter, heavier sauce, so choose according to whether you want the dish sweet.
- Allspice and maceA small teaspoon of mixed ground allspice and black pepper is assertive in 2 1/2 cups of liquid; start with half and taste. Mace is the outer covering of the nutmeg seed, lighter and more floral in character; a blade or a good pinch of ground.
- Chilli vinegar and essence of anchovyChilli vinegar was vinegar steeped with dried chillies, easily made or replaced with a teaspoon of a plain hot sauce plus a splash of wine vinegar. Essence of anchovy is close to anchovy paste or a good dash of Worcestershire sauce; a teaspoon is enough to season, not to flavour outright.
- ThickeningLift the fish onto a warm dish, cover it, and reduce the liquid hard for the eight to ten minutes given, then thicken with a small beurre manie or a little kneaded flour and butter whisked in. Straining afterwards removes the cloves and any flour lumps.
- YieldThe recipe names no quantity of fish, but a pint of gravy with a glass of wine suits two or three servings, allowing one small flounder each. The sauce is generous; halve it if you are cooking fillets.
Flounder was cheap, plentiful and slightly bland, which is why Victorian cookery books so often gave it a sauce built on red wine, spice and anchovy rather than the simpler butter treatment often said to be preferred for sole or turbot. Sauces like this descend from the highly seasoned fish "stews" of the eighteenth century, where anchovy essence, mushroom ketchup and spiced vinegars did the work that stock reduction and fresh herbs do now; a well-stocked Victorian store cupboard held an array of such bottled seasonings, and Cassell's assumes its reader has them to hand. The reliance on "some good gravy" is equally telling of the period: a household kitchen kept a stockpot going, so a pint of brown gravy was a starting point rather than a separate undertaking. Cassell's dictionary of cookery, generally traced to a compilation of the 1870s and reissued for decades, including under the title New Dictionary of Cookery, arranged such dishes alphabetically as reference entries, on the assumption that a cook wanting to do something with flounders would simply look them up.