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PIKE (a la Genevoise)
Pike which has lost its first freshness is sometimes stewed in rich stock and wine, so as to disguise its condition. For fresh fish this mode of cookery is quite unnecessary. Clean the pike well, without scaling it. Put it into a fish-kettle just large enough to contain it, and strain over it as much hot court bouillon-mixed with whatever proportion of wine may be wished-as will cover it. Set it on the fire, and let it stew gently until done enough. Drain the pike, and scale it thoroughly. Put it into a clean pan with as much of the liquid as will moisten it, and add half a pint of white stock, a little salt and cayenne, a tea-spoonful of essence of anchovies, and a table-spoonful of lemon-juice. Thicken the sauce with a tea-spoonful of roux, or with a small lump of butter rolled in flour. Let it boil until smooth. Lay the fish on a hot dish, strain part of the sauce over it, and send the rest to table in a tureen. Court bouillon is a sort of broth which is made to boil fresh-water fish in; it may be used several times if it is boiled up every four days with an additional pint of water. Each successive boiling will make it richer. It is prepared as follows. Boil a sliced carrot, an onion, a bunch of parsley, a sprig of thyme, a bay-leaf, half a dozen peppercorns, half a dozen cloves, and a shallot, with an ounce of fresh butter, for ten minutes. Add two quarts of water and half a pint of vinegar, and simmer the liquid gently for an hour. Strain it, and, if liked, before using it, mix a little light wine with it. This bouillon will be found an excellent foundation for fish sauces. (See also COURT BOUILLON, WITH WINE.) Some cooks pour boiling vinegar over the pike, and let the fish lie in it for two or three days before dressing as above. Time to boil, according to size. A medium-sized pike will take half an hour. When the flesh will leave the bones easily the fish is done enough.
A Victorian freshwater-fish poach with a thickened wine sauce. Two things in the text deserve attention before you start: the trick of leaving the scales on until after cooking, and the housekeeping advice about the court bouillon, which should be ignored.
- Scale it afterwards, not beforeThis is the hinge of the method. The scales hold the delicate flesh together in the kettle and are far easier to strip off once the fish is cooked and drained. Handle the pike gently at that stage or it will break up.
- Do not keep or reuse the court bouillonThe instruction to boil it up every four days with an extra pint of water belongs to a world of cold larders and daily marketing. A fish- and vegetable-based broth left at room temperature is an ideal medium for bacterial growth, and reboiling does not undo toxin formation. Cool it quickly, refrigerate, use within two days, or discard it.
- Ignore the boiling-vinegar variationSteeping a whole pike in vinegar for two or three days without refrigeration or a measured brine strength is not a controlled cure. If you want soused or pickled pike, follow a current recipe with stated salt, acid and temperature.
- Pints and gillsPints -- half a pint of white stock is 10 imperial fl oz, about 1¼ US cups. The court bouillon's two quarts of water and half pint of vinegar are also imperial measure: roughly 2.3 litres of water to 280 ml of vinegar.
- Essence of anchoviesA thin bottled anchovy extract, once on every grocer's shelf. Use about a teaspoon of anchovy paste, or half a teaspoon of colatura di alici, and taste before adding salt — both are considerably saltier than the original.
- RouxA teaspoonful of roux means a spoonful of pre-cooked flour-and-butter paste kept ready in the larder. Equal weights of soft butter and flour kneaded together (the beurre manié the recipe offers as an alternative) does the same job; whisk it in off the boil, then simmer a minute or two to lose the raw flour taste.
- Poaching timeHalf an hour for a medium fish is generous by modern standards. Hold the liquid at a bare shiver -- never a rolling boil -- and reckon about 10 minutes per inch of thickness, or until the thickest part reaches 145F (standard guidance for fish; many cooks take it off nearer 135-140F). Pike dries out quickly once past that point.
- Kettle and buyingAny deep roasting pan long enough to hold the fish, covered with foil, stands in for a fish kettle. Pike is riddled with forked Y-bones along the flanks; serving it whole on the bone, as here, is the easiest way to deal with them. A 3 lb fish serves four.
À la génevoise is usually associated with Geneva and its lake fisheries, though the derivation is not settled -- some authorities trace the name instead to génoise, Genoa. Classic French kitchens generally attached the name to salmon or trout in red wine, so this white-wine version with anchovy and lemon is an anglicised cousin. The opening sentence is the most revealing part of the entry: freshwater fish reached town kitchens slowly and unreliably, and a rich wine stew was a known way of covering up a fish past its best. The compiler's tartness on the point -- that for fresh fish the method is unnecessary -- chimes with the period's broader anxiety about adulterated and tainted food. The court bouillon note, with its instruction to keep and enrich the broth over successive boilings, reflects a kitchen economy in which nothing flavourful was thrown away.