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Halibut, Baked
Put the head and shoulders of a moderate-sized halibut into a well-buttered baking-dish, dredge some flour over, and season them rather highly with salt, pepper, and powdered mace. Put four or five good-sized lumps of butter upon the fish, and bake in a moderate oven until sufficiently cooked, which will be in about an hour. Thicken the gravy which runs from the fish with flour and butter, and serve it in the dish with the halibut. Shrimp or anchovy sauce may be sent to table with it. Probable cost, about 6d. or 8d. per pound. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A plain Victorian baked fish that depends almost entirely on not overcooking it — the hour given here belongs to a whole head-and-shoulder cut of a very large fish, not to a fillet.
- The cut"Head and shoulders of a moderate-sized halibut" means the thick front section of a fish that might weigh 20 lb or more — a bone-in joint several inches deep. No fishmonger sells this by default; ask for a thick centre or shoulder cut on the bone, 3-4 lb, or use two thick steaks and cut the time drastically.
- Oven temperatureA moderate oven is usually reckoned at around 350F (175C). At that heat a 3-4 lb bone-in piece will be done well before an hour; check at 30-35 minutes.
- Timing is the hingeHalibut is very lean and goes dry and cottony the moment it passes doneness. Cook to 130-135F at the thickest point and let it rest; the flesh should just separate from the bone, not flake apart at a touch. Fillets or steaks need roughly 10 minutes per inch of thickness.
- MacePowdered mace is the outer aril of nutmeg, warmer and less sweet than the seed itself. It appears often with fish in nineteenth-century English cookery. If you have none, a scant pinch of grated nutmeg will do, though it is sweeter.
- "Season rather highly"Take the instruction seriously — salt the fish 20 minutes before it goes in the oven — but a squeeze of lemon at the table is no betrayal.
- Thickening the gravyFlour and butter here means beurre manié: equal weights kneaded to a paste, whisked into the hot pan juices off the heat and then simmered a minute or two to lose the raw flour taste. A lean fish this size will not throw much liquid, so expect a few tablespoons of sauce, not a jugful.
- The accompanying saucesShrimp sauce is a butter sauce with peeled brown shrimps stirred through; anchovy sauce is the same base sharpened with anchovy essence. Either supplies the salt-and-savour the fish lacks on its own, and both are worth making rather than skipping.
- SourcingAtlantic halibut is severely depleted and appears on most avoid lists; Pacific halibut from managed North American fisheries is the usual substitute. Turbot or a thick cod loin behave similarly in this treatment.
- Yield and costFive or six as written. The "6d. or 8d. per pound" is a Victorian price note; whatever its exact standing then, halibut is a good deal dearer today.
Cassell's places this among plain oven-baked fish. Halibut became more widely available in British markets over the nineteenth century as trawling and the railways moved catch inland fast enough to sell fresh, and its firm, bone-in shoulder suited a slow bake in a way that softer fish did not. The mace, the flour dredge and the butter-thickened pan gravy are all older English fish cookery carried forward, and the offer of shrimp or anchovy sauce is a common Victorian treatment for a lean white fish — a salty, savoury butter sauce sent separately to the table so each diner could correct the plainness for themselves.