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Gurnet, Fillets Of
Run the edge of a knife along the side of the spine, lift the flesh from the bone, and having thus removed the fillets, cut them into neat pieces, rub some flour over them, dip them in beaten egg, and roll them in bread-crumbs. Fry them in hot fat till they are brightly browned. Drain them on a cloth, to free them from grease, and dish them neatly. Send any of the fish sauces to table in a tureen. Time, ten minutes to fry. Probable cost, uncertain. Sufficient, a moderate-sized gurnet for three persons.
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A plain breadcrumbed fry that depends entirely on clean filleting and hot fat. The only real obstacle is the fish itself, which most shops no longer stock under this name.
- What a gurnet is"Gurnet" is the older spelling of gurnard, a bony-headed, firm-fleshed inshore fish with red, grey and tub varieties. Any firm white fillet of similar size behaves the same way here: red mullet, small snapper, or a thick piece of pollock or haddock.
- Filleting a bony headGurnard has an armoured head and a heavy skeleton, so the yield is low, perhaps a third of the whole weight. Keep the head and frame for stock; they make an unusually good fish broth.
- Frying temperature"Hot fat" for a crumbed fillet means 350-375F. Below that the crumbs absorb grease before they colour; much above it they brown before the fish is set.
- Ten minutes is for thick piecesThe stated ten minutes suits substantial cuts; the recipe does not say whether the fat is shallow or deep. Thinner fillets need only a few minutes total; the flesh should be opaque and just parting into flakes.
- The crumbing sequenceFlour, egg, crumbs, in that order, and press the crumbs on firmly. Letting the coated pieces rest ten minutes before frying helps the crust stay put rather than sliding off in the pan.
- Draining"Drain on a cloth" means paper towel today, but a wire rack is better still: it keeps the underside from steaming soft.
- SaucesThe "fish sauces" of the period meant anchovy, shrimp, Dutch (a butter-and-egg sauce close to hollandaise), or plain melted butter with lemon. Tartare or a caper butter serves the same purpose now.
- YieldOne moderate gurnard serves three as written, though once the low fillet yield is allowed for that is a modest portion each by modern main-course standards.
Gurnard was for centuries a cheap fish in British ports, valued more by fishermen and market cooks than by grand tables. Cassell's gives its cost as "uncertain", a routine formula in the work for items whose price varied by season and locality. The fish grunts audibly when landed, and the name is generally traced to the Old French gornart, from a root meaning to grunt. Its bony head and modest size kept it out of fashion through much of the twentieth century, when it was often sold for pot bait or crab bait; the later revival of interest in under-used species has brought it back to fishmongers' slabs. The treatment here, egg-and-breadcrumbs then fried, was the standard nineteenth-century answer to any firm white fillet, and recurs across the dictionary with only the fish's name changed.