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Plaice, Curried
Put half a pound of Patna rice in a saucepan, with two sliced onions, a little salt, a table-spoonful of curry powder, and a pint of water. Let this come to a boil, then cut up a good-sized plaice into six pieces, put them into the saucepan, and let them boil for fifteen minutes.
A one-pot fish pilaf of the plainest kind, and the timing is the thing that needs attention. The rice and the fish are given the same fifteen minutes, which suits the rice and ruins the plaice.
- Cook the fish separately in timeFifteen minutes of boiling reduces plaice to shreds and cotton-wool. Thick cutlets from a whole fish need about 6-8 minutes in the simmering rice; fillets need 4-5. Add them once the rice has already absorbed most of the liquid, and keep the pan at a bare simmer rather than a boil so the pieces hold together.
- Patna riceA long-grain rice associated with the Patna region; by this period the name was used in Britain largely as a trade term for long-grain rice generally, as distinct from the round grains used for puddings. Any long-grain rice works; basmati is the closest in character. Modern rice needs no more than a rinse; older cookery books commonly direct that rice be picked over and washed before use.
- Liquid ratioHalf a pound of rice is about a cup and a quarter, and a pint (20 fl oz in a British book) is a workable absorption ratio for it, though the onions release more water. If the pan looks dry before the rice is tender, add hot water a few spoonfuls at a time.
- Curry powderA tablespoon of commercial curry powder stirred straight into water tastes raw and dusty. Frying the powder with the sliced onions in a little butter or oil for a minute before the water goes in costs nothing and transforms the dish.
- "A good-sized plaice"Roughly a 1.5-2 lb whole fish, which yields about 12-14 oz of flesh. Cutting it across into six pieces means bone-in cutlets; a fishmonger will do it, or use four skinless fillets instead and cut them in half.
- BonesBoiled plaice cutlets shed their fine bones readily into the rice. Lift the pieces out before serving, flake the flesh off the frame, and return it to the pan if you want a dish that can be eaten without picking.
- YieldServes three to four as a light main course. It wants a sharp accompaniment: lemon, chutney, or a spoonful of yoghurt, none of which the original suggests.
Curried fish of this sort belongs to the long British domestication of Indian cookery, in which curry powder became a store-cupboard seasoning applied to whatever the fishmonger had cheap that morning. Plaice was among the cheaper North Sea flatfish, and the combination of rice, onion and curry powder in one pot belongs to the same broad family of Victorian dishes as kedgeree. Patna rice, named for the city and district on the Ganges, was the rice British cooks knew by default until basmati became widely available in the later twentieth century.