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Perch, Stewed in Wine
Like all fish of its kind, the perch, though very good when plainly dressed, is slightly insipid; it is therefore very often cooked, as the great Izaak Walton says, "with trouble and charges." When economy does not require to be studied, the following will be found an excellent dish. Take three medium-sized perch, wash, then scale and empty them, and take out the gills. Lay the fish in a stewpan, and just cover them with equal parts of sherry and stock, or, if preferred, with sherry only. Put with them a sliced onion, a handful of parsley, a sprig of thyme, a bay-leaf, a small clove of garlic, and a little pepper and salt, and let them simmer gently until they are sufficiently cooked. Drain them, and keep them hot until the sauce is made. Strain the liquor, put it into a stew-pan, and mix gradually with it an ounce of flour which has been smoothly worked with an ounce of butter; let it boil, then add a large table-spoonful of chopped parsley and half an ounce of cold butter. Stir the sauce until the butter is dissolved. Take the whole of the skin off the perch, pour the sauce over them, and stick the red fins into the middle of the backs; serve as quickly as possible. Time, about a quarter of an hour to stew the perch. It is a fish which is seldom offered for sale. Sufficient for two or three persons.
A Victorian freshwater dish that works cleanly in a modern pan, provided the fish barely simmers and the sherry is dry. The sauce is a straightforward beurre manié reduction, finished with cold butter.
- The hinge: bare simmer, not a boilPerch flesh is delicate and tightens fast. Keep the liquid at a lazy tremble with no rolling bubbles; the fish is done when the flesh at the backbone turns opaque and pulls away, around 8-12 minutes for medium fish rather than the full quarter of an hour.
- Which sherryA dry sherry (fino or amontillado) is the safer reading. Modern cream sherry is sweetened and will make the sauce cloying. Half sherry, half fish or light chicken stock is the more forgiving version; all sherry is assertive and needs the butter finish to round it.
- Scaling and spinesPerch scales are small, tight and stubborn, and the dorsal fin and gill covers are genuinely sharp. Work from tail to head with the back of a knife under running water, or dip the fish in near-boiling water for ten seconds to loosen the scales. Handle the spiny ridge with a cloth.
- Sourcing the fishCassell's note that perch is "seldom offered for sale" still largely holds outside continental Europe. Any lean, firm freshwater or white fish takes the treatment well: bream, pike-perch, walleye, sea bass or ordinary perch fillets. The original does not say what "medium-sized" means; small whole fish that will cook through in the stated quarter-hour are what is wanted.
- The thickeningAn ounce each of flour and butter kneaded cold will thicken roughly a pint of strained liquor to a light pouring sauce; reduce the liquor further if you want it to coat. Whisk it in a small piece at a time off the heat, then bring to a boil for a minute or two to cook out the flour before the parsley and the final half-ounce of cold butter go in off the heat.
- Skinning and the finsThe skin lifts easily while the fish is hot; work quickly with the point of a knife from the head end. Sticking the red fins upright in the back is period presentation only and can be skipped without loss.
- YieldThree whole perch of this size serve two, or three at a light first course, as the original states. Boiled potatoes or plain rice absorb the sauce.
Perch has long been thought of as more an angler's fish than a fishmonger's, which is why Cassell's ends the entry by noting it is "seldom offered for sale" — a river catch cooked at home the day it was landed. The quotation about dressing fish "with trouble and charges" is credited here to Izaak Walton, whose Compleat Angler (1653) devotes affectionate pages to the perch and to elaborate wine-and-herb cookery for freshwater fish; the phrase is Cassell's paraphrase of that spirit as much as a strict citation. The method itself is a small matelote: freshwater fish poached in wine with onion, garlic and a bouquet, the cooking liquor then bound with kneaded butter and flour. That French technique had been thoroughly absorbed into English household cookery by the time of writing, and the editors' aside that this is the dish for when "economy does not require to be studied" tells you exactly how a bottle of sherry poured into a stewpan was regarded in a middle-class Victorian kitchen.