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Halibut Cutlets
Put the halibut, before cutting it into slices, into a dish, strew a little salt over it, and three-parts fill the dish with water. When the fish has been soaking about an hour, take it out, dry it, and cut it into slices, not more than half an inch thick. Make a thin batter of flour and water, dip the slices of fish in this, and afterwards put them into the frying-pan, with hot fat. When one side is browned, turn over with a slicer upon the other. Drain the cutlets on blotting-paper, dish on a napkin, and serve with anchovy, shrimp, or any other fish sauce that may be preferred. Halibut cutlets are very good with nothing but a lemon squeezed over them. A few bread-crumbs seasoned with pepper and salt only may be strewn over them before frying. Time, ten or twelve minutes. Probable cost, 6d. or 8d. per pound. Sufficient, four pounds for six or seven persons.
A plain shallow-fried fish recipe that needs almost no translation, though the timing and the drying materials belong to another century.
- The soak is the pointThe soak -- An hour in water with a little salt is a very dilute brine, and the recipe gives no reason for it; the likeliest effect is to firm and whiten the flesh rather than to season it through. Do not skip the drying afterwards, or the batter will slide off.
- Cut thickness"Not more than half an inch thick" is the instruction that governs everything else. Thicker slices will not cook through before the coating darkens.
- Timing"Ten or twelve minutes" is the book's time for the dish; whether it covers one cutlet or successive panfuls is not stated. Half-inch halibut needs only a few minutes a side in properly hot fat; held longer it dries out and goes cottony.
- The batterFlour and water only, mixed thin. It is a sealing layer rather than a proper fritter batter, so keep it sparse. The seasoned breadcrumbs mentioned at the end are strewn on before frying, and may be intended in addition to the batter rather than instead of it.
- Hot fatVictorian frying fat meant dripping, lard or clarified butter in a shallow pan, not deep oil. Use enough to come a third of the way up the cutlets and get it properly hot before the fish goes in.
- Blotting-paperUnsized absorbent paper sold for ink. Paper towels or a wire rack do the same job; drain briefly and serve at once, as battered fish softens quickly.
- Dishing on a napkinA folded linen napkin on the platter absorbed stray fat at table. Purely presentational now, and it will make the coating limp -- a warmed dish is better.
- YieldFour pounds for six or seven is a large Victorian portion. Six ounces of trimmed halibut per person is ample today, so about two and a half pounds serves six.
- CostSixpence to eightpence a pound puts halibut in the middle of the period's fish prices: dearer than herring or mackerel, well below salmon. It is now among the more expensive whitefish sold, and sustainability varies sharply by fishery.
The suggested accompaniments, anchovy and shrimp sauce, were standard Victorian pairings for plain fish, both essentially butter sauces sharpened with something briny; the closing remark that lemon alone will do is the more modern instinct. "Cutlet", taken over from meat cookery, was routinely applied to a thick slice of fish.