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Shad, Fried
Scale the fish, lift the flesh from the bones, and divide it into pieces convenient for serving. Preserve the roe to fry with them. Wash the pieces, wipe them dry with a soft cloth, and dip each one separately in flour. Put them into boiling hot fat, and fry them gently until done enough. Drain them, and serve them upon a hot dish. Fry the roe, and garnish the fish with it. Serve with caper or maitre d'hotel sauce. Time to fry, ten minutes or more, according to thickness.
A straightforward pan or deep fry, but shad is one of the boniest fish sold and the roe behaves nothing like the flesh. Both need handling that the original takes for granted.
- The bones are the whole problemShad carries rows of fine floating bones set into the muscle above and below the ribs. Unless you can buy it boned by the fishmonger, plan on a slow session with tweezers, or ask for it pre-boned; a plain fillet will be full of needles.
- "Boiling hot fat"Means fat at frying heat, not liquid at 212F. Aim for 350-375F. Below that the flour coating soaks; much above it and the outside colours before the thicker pieces are through.
- "Until done enough"The flesh should be opaque and flake at the thickest point, roughly 145F internal. Ten minutes is right only for thick centre-cut pieces; thin tail sections will be finished in three or four, so fry by size, not by the clock.
- Frying the roeA shad roe sac is a sealed membrane full of moisture and will burst and spit if it goes into hot fat untouched. Prick the membrane in several places first, keep the heat moderate, and cook it gently until just firm and pink-grey inside, around eight to ten minutes for a large pair. Overcooked roe turns dry and grainy.
- The flour dredgeDip each piece separately and fry it soon after; flour that sits on wet fish turns to paste. Drying the fish thoroughly with a cloth, as instructed, is what makes the coating crisp rather than gummy.
- The saucesMaitre d'hotel is butter creamed with lemon juice, chopped parsley, salt and pepper, set firm and sliced onto the hot fish. Caper sauce here means a butter or light bechamel sauce with capers and a little of their vinegar, not a mayonnaise.
- If you cannot get shadAmerican shad is seasonal and, in many rivers, subject to fishery closures and catch limits; check what is legal and available where you are. Bluefish, mackerel or large herring take the same treatment, though none give a roe comparable to shad's.
- YieldA whole shad of 3-4 lb, boned, serves about four, with one roe sac split between two plates as garnish.
Shad is an anadromous member of the herring family that runs up rivers to spawn in spring, and Cassell's was compiled in London in the 1870s and expanded in later editions. The species name Alosa sapidissima -- "most savoury" -- was given in the early nineteenth century and reflects how highly the flesh was rated, in spite of the bones that made boning shad a recognised professional skill. The recipe insists on preserving the roe and using it as garnish rather than discarding it. Heavy overfishing and river damming through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries reduced the great runs that made shad a cheap seasonal staple, so a dish once cooked by the panful is now an occasional luxury.