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Ling, Baked
Cut four pounds of ling into slices, and put these into a baking-dish. Dredge well with flour, and sprinkle over them two tea-spoonfuls of salt, half a tea-spoonful of white pepper, and half a tea-spoonful of pounded mace. Divide three ounces of fresh butter into small pieces, and place these here and there upon the fish. Rub a table-spoonful of flour smoothly into half a pint of milk; pour this over the fish, and bake in a moderate oven. Serve on a hot dish, and garnish with toasted sippets. Time to bake, one hour. Probable cost, 1s. 8d. Sufficient for half a dozen persons.
A plain baked white fish in a flour-thickened milk sauce, of the sort Victorian kitchens turned out for family dinner. Two things need attention: the bake time and the fish itself.
- An hour is far too longAn hour is longer than modern practice would require. The recipe specifies only a "moderate oven" — conventionally glossed today as about 350F/180C — in which sliced ling is generally done in 25 to 30 minutes, the flesh just separating into flakes at the thickest point (standard food-safety guidance for fish is 145F/63C). The long original time likely reflects thicker cross-cut pieces and cooler, less reliable ovens.
- Ling, and what to use insteadThis is European ling (Molva molva), a long relative of the cod once cheap and common on British fishmongers' slabs. It is still landed but rarely sold retail; any firm white fish of similar thickness — cod, hake, pollock, haddock loin — behaves the same way here.
- "Slices" means steaks"Slices" here most likely means pieces cut across the body — steaks rather than fillets. Cut fillets into similar-sized portions so they cook evenly; thin tail ends will overcook long before a loin piece is ready.
- Half a pint of milkAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, about 1 1/4 US cups. Whole milk gives the sauce enough body; the tablespoon of flour rubbed into it is the only thickener, so whisk it smooth before pouring or it will set in lumps.
- Pounded maceMace is the lacy covering of the nutmeg seed, and blade mace ground in a mortar is what the recipe means. Ready-ground mace works; half a teaspoon in four pounds of fish is a mild background warmth, not an assertive spice.
- Toasted sippetsNarrow triangles or fingers of toasted bread, cut from a crustless slice and arranged around the dish. They exist to soak up the milk sauce, so toast them dry and add them at the table rather than letting them sit in the liquid.
- Salt and yieldTwo teaspoons of salt for four pounds of fish is reasonable, but the flour dredge means much of it stays on the surface — taste the sauce before serving. Six portions, as stated, assuming potatoes alongside.
Ling was a workhorse fish of the North Atlantic, salted and dried for centuries in Scotland, Norway and Iceland before rail and ice brought it fresh to inland markets. Its cheapness is part of the point of the entry: the "probable cost, 1s. 8d." for a dish feeding six was the kind of figure Cassell's readers checked, the book being aimed at households running on a fixed weekly allowance rather than at professional kitchens. The method here — dredge, dot with butter, pour on thickened milk, bake — is a common late-Victorian treatment for large firm white fish. Sippets, a word usually taken as a diminutive of "sop", were a long-established garnish for dishes served in gravy or sauce.