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Mullet, Grey, Broiled
Scale, clean, and take out the gills and inside. A fish of about two pounds will be best for this mode of cooking. Score the mullet on both sides, lay it on a dish, sprinkle with salt, and pour three table-spoonfuls of oil over it. Turn on the dish, drain, and when to be broiled, fold in oiled paper or not; the fire should be moderate and even. The scores should not be more than a quarter of an inch deep. When sent to table put from six to eight ounces of maitre d'hotel butter on it. Time to broil, half an hour.
A whole fish cooked over live coals, written for a kitchen with a gridiron and a controllable fire. The two things worth adjusting are the cooking time and the sheer quantity of finishing butter.
- The half hour is too longA scored 2 lb fish over moderate heat is done in roughly 8-10 minutes a side; the flesh should part cleanly from the backbone and read about 145F at the thickest point. Thirty minutes suits the moderate coal fire the recipe assumes, and will dry out anything cooked under a modern broiler or over a gas grill.
- Grey mullet, not redGrey mullet (Mugil) is a firm, oily inshore fish, quite unrelated to red mullet. It is sold whole at Mediterranean, Caribbean and East Asian fishmongers. Sea bass, black bream or a small bluefish take the same treatment.
- Why it must be scraped hardGrey mullet feeds on bottom detritus and can taste muddy. Scale it thoroughly, strip out the dark blood line along the spine and rinse the belly cavity well; a fish from clean, cold water is worth seeking out.
- The scoringThe recipe sets a quarter inch as the maximum depth. Deep enough to let heat and salt into the thick shoulder, shallow enough that the fillet does not gape and fall apart on the grid.
- "Turn on the dish, drain"The fish sits in salt and oil, is turned so both sides take it, then drained before it meets the fire. The recipe sets no time for this step.
- Oiled paperThe period wrapping for delicate fish over coals. Parchment brushed with oil does the same job and prevents sticking, though a well-oiled hinged fish basket is easier to turn.
- Maitre d'hotel butterButter creamed with chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Six to eight ounces on a 2 lb fish is a Victorian quantity; 2-3 oz, sliced cold onto the hot fish so it melts at table, suits modern palates.
- YieldA 2 lb whole fish serves two generously, three at a stretch once the head and frame are accounted for.
Cassell's places this among its broiling instructions, which call for an even, moderate fire, food raised above the flame, and nothing between it and the heat but oil and paper. Grey mullet was a cheap, abundant catch around British estuaries and harbours in the nineteenth century, and its reputation suffered for it. The finish of maitre d'hotel butter is pure Victorian restaurant French: a compound butter named for the head of the dining room, applied to grilled meat and fish alike.