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Grayling, Broiled
Wash, scale, and empty the fish; season them with pepper and salt, dip them in oil, and place them on the gridiron over a clear fire for a few minutes. Serve on a hot dish, with the head and tail together, and squeeze the juice of a lemon over them. The fish should be small when cooked thus. Probable cost of this fish, uncertain, for the reason stated in the preceding recipe. Sufficient, a moderate-sized fish for two persons.
A three-line recipe that depends almost entirely on the fire and the freshness of the fish. Grayling has soft, delicate flesh that dries out faster than trout, so the margin between done and ruined is narrow.
- Size matters mostThe instruction to use small fish is the hinge. Grayling of 8-10 oz cook through on a grill in the few minutes specified; anything over a pound will scorch outside before the spine is done and should be scored on both sides or baked instead.
- A clear fireA fire burnt down so that it gives steady, glowing heat without smoke or flame; in a Victorian kitchen this would usually be coal rather than charcoal. The modern equivalent is a well-ashed charcoal grill or a preheated cast-iron griddle; under a domestic broiler, set the rack about 4 inches from the element at full heat.
- TimingThree to four minutes a side for a small whole fish. The flesh should just part from the backbone at the thickest point; grayling goes cottony if pushed further.
- GridironA hinged fish grill or grate is worth using here. Grayling skin is thin and tears, and turning a whole fish with a slice on open bars usually leaves half of it behind.
- Scaling and cleaningGrayling scales are large and loose and come away easily under cold running water. Gut the fish and pull the gills; the dark blood line along the spine should be scraped out, as it turns bitter with heat.
- "Head and tail together"Most likely the fish is curved so that the tail is brought round to meet the head, a presentation used for small fish in Victorian cookery; it may equally mean no more than that the fish is sent to table whole, with head and tail left on.
- OilThe book means olive or salad oil, brushed on to stop sticking rather than to flavour. Anything neutral with a high smoke point does the same job over embers.
- SourcingGrayling is an angler's fish, not a market one, which is why the book calls the cost uncertain. It is subject to close seasons and local protection in many waters; small trout or char take the same treatment.
- YieldOne moderate fish for two, as stated, though a small grayling per person makes a better plate. Serve with brown bread and butter and nothing more elaborate than the lemon.
Grayling (Thymallus thymallus) is a river fish of clean, fast, gravelly water, and its Latin name records the old belief that a freshly caught one smells of thyme; Izaak Walton repeats the claim in The Compleat Angler, and anglers still argue about whether it is true. It never became a market fish in Britain because it does not travel or keep well, which may be part of why its cost is given as "uncertain" - you got grayling because someone in the household fished, not because a fishmonger had it. That accounts for the brevity of the recipe. A fish landed in the morning and grilled the same day needs pepper, salt, oil and lemon and nothing else. Grayling is generally in best condition in autumn and winter, when trout are out of season, which made it a useful fish on a country table in months when the river offered little else.