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Herrings, Curried
Cut the heads off six herrings, bone them, and remove the roes. Put them in a pan of slightly acidulated water, and let it boil up quickly. Have ready in a saucepan an onion chopped and slightly browned in butter; put in with it a table-spoonful of curry powder, stir for a few seconds, then add half a gill of white wine and a little fish stock. Put in a pinch of roughly chopped parsley, a bay-leaf, and salt to taste, and let this boil. Arrange the herrings and roes in the saucepan, and let them be no more than covered by the liquor. Set it over the fire to boil up again; put the cover on, and draw the saucepan aside. After about ten minutes remove the herrings and roes with a fish slicer; put them on a hot dish, strain the sauce over, and serve.
A quick fish braise rather than a curry in the Indian sense — herrings poached in a curry-scented wine and stock liquor. Everything hangs on keeping the pan below a boil once the fish goes in.
- The hinge: draw the pan aside"Draw the saucepan aside" means off the direct heat, finishing in residual warmth — the Victorian range equivalent of the lowest burner setting. Herring is soft and oily and will shred into the sauce if it is allowed to bubble; hold the liquor at a bare shiver, around 170-180F, for the ten minutes.
- Half a gillA gill is a quarter-pint, so half a gill is about 2 1/2 fl oz (roughly 70 ml), a shade under a third of a cup of white wine. Add fish stock to bring the liquid just level with the fish and no higher — the instruction that they "be no more than covered" is about concentrating the sauce, not drowning it.
- Acidulated waterWater with a splash of vinegar or lemon juice, roughly a tablespoon to a quart. The brief boil-up firms the flesh and rinses off surface blood and oil; drain the herrings and discard that water rather than carrying it into the sauce.
- Boning six herringsHerring bone best butterflied: slit the belly, open flat, press along the backbone with your thumb, then lift the spine out from the head end and the pin bones come with it. A fishmonger will do it in seconds if asked. Six herrings is a generous plateful for three, or four with rice.
- The roesBoth kinds appear in herring — hard roe (eggs) and soft roe (milt). Either works, but soft roes are more fragile still and want the gentlest of the poaching liquor; modern fish counters rarely leave them in, so ask in advance.
- Curry powderThe few seconds of stirring in butter before the liquid goes in is a proper bloom — it cooks the raw edge off the spice. Victorian curry powder was heavier on turmeric, coriander and fenugreek and lighter on chilli than most commercial blends today; a mild Madras-style powder is closer than a hot one.
- Straining the sauceThe sauce is thin by design, closer to a spiced broth than a curry gravy. Strain out the onion, bay and parsley as directed, and if it tastes weak, lift the fish onto the hot dish and reduce the liquor hard for a minute before pouring it over.
- ServingPlain boiled rice, or brown bread and butter, would both be plausible period accompaniments, though the recipe names none. It is also good cold the next day, and if the fish stock was gelatinous the liquor may set to a light jelly.
Herring was the cheapest sea fish in Britain for centuries, landed in enormous quantities along the east coast and the Scottish herring ports, and Cassell's carries a number of ways to disguise its familiarity — soused, potted, grilled with mustard, and here curried. Curry powder had long since become an ordinary British store-cupboard item, a ready-mixed and considerably tamed descendant of the spice mixtures brought back by East India Company households, and it was applied freely to leftovers and cheap protein of every kind. The technique here, though, is French rather than Indian: onion sweated in butter, wine and stock, bay and parsley, the fish barely poached and the liquor strained over. It is a reminder that Victorian "curry" usually meant a familiar dish with curry powder in it, not an attempt at any dish from the subcontinent.