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Ray Soup
Boil a pound of ray in a quart of fish stock. When it is tender and broken to pieces, strain the liquor through a sieve. Put it back into the saucepan, and let it boil again. Drop into it a spoonful of vermicelli, and when this is tender draw the saucepan from the fire for a minute, stir into the soup a quarter of a pint of cream which has been beaten up with the yolk of an egg, and let it simmer a few minutes longer, but on no account let it boil after the egg is added. Heat a French roll in the oven, soak it in a little of the soup until it is moist throughout, put it into the tureen, pour the soup over it, and serve. The ray is a fish which is very suitable for making soup, as its bones are delicate, and soon dissolve. Time, a few minutes to boil the fish. Probable cost, uncertain, ray being seldom bought; it is, however, very inexpensive. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A thin, creamy fish soup built on skate, thickened at the last minute with egg and cream. Almost everything hinges on the final step.
- Never boil after the eggThe yolk-and-cream liaison curdles at a simmer well below boiling. Take the pan off the heat, temper the cream mixture with a ladle of hot soup, then return it and hold the soup at about 170-180F until it thickens slightly.
- Ray means skateRay and skate are used interchangeably in British cookery books. Buy skate wing, which is sold skinned or unskinned; a pound of wing gives roughly half a pound of flesh once the cartilage is stripped.
- SourcingCommon skate (Dipturus batis) is now critically endangered and cannot be landed in EU or UK waters. Any skate wing on a modern fish counter will be a smaller, managed species; ask which, and avoid unlabelled wings.
- Smell it firstSkate carries urea in its flesh, which converts to ammonia as the fish ages. A faint whiff disappears in cooking; a strong one does not. Reject anything sharply ammoniac.
- The bones do not dissolveSkate has cartilage rather than true bone, which is what the original means by delicate bones. It softens but does not melt away, so strain the liquor carefully and pick over any flesh you return to the pot.
- MeasuresAn imperial quart of stock is 40 fl oz, about 5 US cups. A quarter of a pint of cream is 5 imperial fl oz, a little over half a US cup. A spoonful of vermicelli is vague; 1 to 1½ oz of broken vermicelli is right for this quantity of liquid.
- The French rollA small, light white roll with a thin crust; a soft baguette section or a plain dinner roll stands in. Crisp it at 350F, then soak it in hot soup so it collapses into the tureen rather than floating as a dry lump.
- TimingSkate wing poaches through in 8 to 10 minutes for a pound, not the "few minutes" implied; the fish is done when the flesh combs away from the cartilage in strands.
- YieldFive or six as a first course, three as a light supper.
Cassell's is frank that ray was "seldom bought" — skate was a cheap fish in Victorian Britain, landed in quantity by trawlers and often sold to the poorest end of the market or to fried-fish shops, where its firm, boneless flesh suited the pan. That low standing makes its appearance here as soup worth noting, as does the observation that its cartilaginous frame yields body to a stock without the tedious bone-picking a whitefish demands. The finish — vermicelli, then cream beaten with an egg yolk, then a soaked roll in the tureen — is the standard nineteenth-century English treatment for a genteel fish soup. The ammonia problem that keeps skate off many modern menus is unmentioned.