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HADDOCK, BAKED (another way) (Clean and scale the haddock)
Clean and scale the haddock, wipe it very dry, and fill it with a good veal forcemeat. Sew up the slit securely with strong thread, dredge a little flour and a pinch of salt over it, and put about two ounces of butter, broken, into small pieces, here and there in the dish. Bake it in a moderate oven. Mince, very finely, two large gherkins, a table-spoonful of capers, and three shallots; add half a salt-spoonful of pepper, and put these ingredients into a saucepan, with half a pint of good brown sauce. Simmer gently for five minutes, then add a tea-spoonful of the essence of anchovy, and a table-spoonful of vinegar. Lift the haddock carefully into a hot dish, garnish with parsley and sliced lemon, and send the sauce to table in a tureen. Time, from half to three-quarters of an hour to bake a moderate-sized haddock. Probable cost, 9d. and upwards. Sufficient for three or four persons.
A whole stuffed baked fish with a sharp piquante-style sauce. Nothing here is difficult, but several of the quantities and ingredients need translating before you shop.
- The fishA "moderate-sized haddock" for three or four means a whole fish of roughly 2 to 2 1/2 lb, gutted and scaled but with head and tail on. Ask the fishmonger to gut it through the belly and leave the cavity intact so it will hold stuffing; a filleted fish cannot be used for this.
- Moderate oven350F (180C). At that heat a 2 lb stuffed haddock will take close to the upper end of the stated range, 40 to 45 minutes.
- Doneness beats the clockJudge by the thickest part behind the head, where the flesh should part from the bone cleanly and read 145F. Stuffing slows the heat reaching the centre, which may account for the wide window the original allows.
- Veal forcemeatA Victorian veal forcemeat of this kind is typically minced veal with shredded suet, fresh breadcrumbs, chopped parsley and lemon zest, bound with egg and seasoned with mace. Ground veal is now a special order in much of the world; ground pork or a pork-and-veal mix behaves the same. Pack it loosely, about 1 to 1 1/2 cups for a fish this size, or it will burst the seam.
- Sewing upUse cotton kitchen twine and a trussing needle, or close the belly with short metal skewers laced with twine. Whatever you use, count the pieces before serving so none reaches the table.
- Small measuresA salt-spoonful is a quarter teaspoon, so half of one is a scant eighth. Half a pint of brown sauce means half an imperial pint, about 10 fl oz or 1 1/4 cups.
- Brown sauce and essence of anchovy"Good brown sauce" here is a meat-stock espagnole, not the bottled condiment sold under that name today; a well-reduced beef or veal stock thickened with a brown roux is the intent. Essence of anchovy was a thin bottled anchovy extract, closest now to anchovy paste thinned with a little water, or Worcestershire sauce at the same quantity.
- GherkinsThe Victorian gherkin is a small vinegar-pickled cucumber, closer to a French cornichon than to a sweet American gherkin. Sweet pickles will fight the vinegar at the end of the sauce.
- Cost and yieldNinepence is a period price and tells you only that haddock was cheap. The stated three or four servings holds if the stuffing is generous; the sauce, at 1 1/4 cups, is ample for four.
Haddock was one of the cheapest and most abundant fish landed on the North Sea coast in the nineteenth century, and by the time Cassell's dictionary was compiled the railways were carrying it inland fresh enough to be baked whole rather than only cured. That accounts for the price note: at ninepence this was a family dinner, not a company dish. Stuffing a round fish with veal forcemeat and baking it was a common British treatment for pike, haddock and cod alike, giving a modest fish enough substance to be carved at table. The sauce is a domesticated sauce piquante — the gherkins, capers, shallots and vinegar of the French original, built on a brown sauce and sharpened with the anchovy essence that Victorian kitchens kept bottled as a shortcut to depth of flavour. The recipe directs that it be sent separately in a tureen rather than poured over, which also keeps the browned skin from going soft.