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Garfish
These fish are not much liked on account of their strong oily taste. The oil, however, lies in the skin, and if it be taken quite off, the flesh is not to be despised. The garfish may be either boiled, broiled, baked, or stewed, or cooked as follows. Take off the skin, cut the fish into pieces about one inch and a half long, and put them into a marinade made of vinegar, oil, pepper, salt, sweet herbs, and two or three cloves. Let them lie an hour or two, then put them into a jar, cover them closely, add a little gravy, if necessary, and put the jar into a saucepan of boiling water. Let it boil until the fish is sufficiently cooked. Serve with anchovy or parsley sauce. Any of the recipes for eels may be used for garfish. Time, about half an hour. The cost is uncertain, for the garfish is seldom offered for sale. Sufficient, one ordinary fish for two persons.
A Victorian method for a fish almost no one sells: the marinated pieces steam gently in a covered jar set in simmering water. Everything hinges on the skinning.
- Skin it, and mean itThe book says the oil that gives garfish its reputation sits in the skin. Strip it off completely before marinating, or the fish will taste of the thing the book is warning you about; the darker flesh beneath the skin is also strong, and some cooks scrape it away.
- Which garfishCassell's means the European garfish or sea needle, Belone belone — a long, beaky fish with bones that turn bright green when cooked. The colour is harmless, from a bile pigment, though it has often put people off. This is not the American gar (Lepisosteus), whose roe is genuinely toxic; if you meet that fish, discard the roe entirely.
- SubstitutesNeedlefish, houndfish and small mackerel all behave the same way here. So does eel, which is why the recipe ends by pointing you at the eel chapter.
- The jar is a bain-marieA heatproof jar or pudding basin standing in a pan of boiling water is a water bath — gentle, even heat that keeps a lean fish from breaking up. Cover it with a lid resting loosely, or with foil, and never seal it airtight; a sealed jar in boiling water builds pressure.
- Marinade proportionsNone are given. Three parts oil to one of vinegar, a good pinch of salt and pepper, two or three cloves and a small handful of herbs will dress about a pound of fish. "Sweet herbs" in Victorian usage generally covers the mild kitchen herbs — parsley, thyme, marjoram and the like, sometimes with a bay leaf.
- "A little gravy"Not gravy in the modern sense but a spoonful or two of meat or fish stock, added only if the jar looks dry. Fish stock or a light chicken stock does the job.
- TimeHalf an hour looks generous for pieces an inch and a half long, though the jar itself has to come up to heat first. Start checking well before the half hour and go by the fish being opaque and flaking rather than by the clock.
- The saucesAnchovy sauce of the period is a butter-and-flour sauce let down with fish stock or milk and sharpened with anchovy essence or mashed fillets; parsley sauce is the same base with chopped parsley and a squeeze of lemon. Either can be made while the jar sits in the pan.
- YieldOne ordinary garfish serves two, as stated. The fish is long and narrow, so the skinned flesh from one goes less far than its length suggests.
Cassell's is candid about why the garfish rarely reached a fishmonger's slab: the cost is "uncertain, for the garfish is seldom offered for sale." It was a bycatch fish, taken alongside mackerel in early summer along the British and northern European coasts. Two things kept it off Victorian tables — the oily skin, which this entry sensibly identifies and removes, and the green bones, which look alarming and were widely and wrongly suspected of being poisonous. The colour comes from biliverdin in the bone; Scandinavian and German cooks, who have long grilled or pickled Hornfisch and hornfisk as a spring delicacy, never seem to have minded. The instruction to fall back on the eel recipes is a standard editorial habit in a dictionary of this size: rather than repeat a dozen methods, the book files the unfamiliar fish alongside the familiar one it most resembles in texture and richness.