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Shad, Boiled
A shad for boiling should not be scaled, but cleaned and washed only. One weighing about eight pounds should be put into boiling water with a handful of salt and boiled slowly for three-quarters of an hour. Drain, and serve on a napkin, garnished with cut lemon and parsley.
A plain court-bouillon treatment of a fish that most cooks now grill, plank or bake. The instructions are sound in outline but the timing belongs to an era of much larger fish and much longer cooking.
- Leave the scales onThis is the one instruction that matters. Shad scales are large and loosely attached, and they form a shield that keeps the soft flesh from breaking up in the water. Scale and skin the fish after it comes out, at the table or in the kitchen.
- The timing is far too longThree-quarters of an hour will reduce shad to cotton wool. Allow roughly 8-10 minutes per inch of thickness at the thickest point, measured from the moment the water returns to a bare tremble, and pull the fish at 135-140F at the backbone.
- "Boiled slowly" means poachedSlide the fish into water that is at a rolling boil, then immediately drop the heat so the surface barely shivers. A true boil tears the flesh apart and drives out fat, which is most of what makes shad worth eating.
- SizeAn eight-pound shad is at the large end of the range; market shad today more often run 3-5 lb, which will poach in 15-20 minutes and serve four to six. Scale the salt to the water rather than the fish -- about 1 tablespoon per quart is a useful working strength.
- The bonesShad carries a mass of fine intermuscular 'floating' bones, and filleting it properly is a specialist skill; only very long cooking of the kind some traditional recipes use is held to soften them. Serving it whole on the bone, as here, is the honest approach -- warn diners, and lift the flesh in sections along the natural seams.
- Serving on a napkinA folded linen napkin laid on the platter absorbs the water that drains from a poached fish so the garnish does not sit in a puddle. A rack over a warmed dish does the same job and looks less startling now.
- What to serve with itThe period assumption is that boiled fish arrives with a sauce from elsewhere in the book -- melted butter, egg sauce or a sorrel purée. Sorrel is the traditional partner for shad and cuts the oiliness better than lemon alone.
- SourcingAmerican shad stocks have declined sharply and several river fisheries are under moratorium, so availability is regional and seasonal, chiefly late winter into spring. Check what is legal and landed where you are before planning the dish.
Shad is an anadromous member of the herring family that runs up rivers to spawn in spring, and its arrival was a fixed point in the calendar on both sides of the Atlantic long before it was a menu item. The American species carries the specific name sapidissima -- "most savoury" -- given by Alexander Wilson in the early nineteenth century, and its spring runs on the Delaware, Hudson and Connecticut supported enormous commercial fisheries, cheap enough that shad was often called a poor man's fish while the roe sold at a premium. Britain has its own smaller allis and twaite shad. The entry is also a reminder of how differently fish was cooked before thermometers: three-quarters of an hour for a large fish was in line with period advice, and the resulting texture was simply what boiled fish was understood to be.