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SOLE (a la Bordelaise)
Select a large sole, and put it into a fireproof dish, sprinkle with a little minced parsley, pepper, salt, a few finely-minced mushrooms and shallots, and an ounce of oiled butter. Add half a wine-glassful of white stock; and the same quantity of sherry. Bake in a brisk oven for fifteen minutes, and baste with the liquor. Serve in the same dish in which it is cooked. Probable cost, 1s. 6d. to 2s.
A whole baked sole with a shallot-and-mushroom butter, written for cooks who bought fish whole and served it in the dish it cooked in. Almost everything translates directly; only the vessel, the oven and the measures need a word.
- Brisk ovenRead this as a hot oven, roughly 400-450F (200-230C). At that heat a large whole sole takes about the fifteen minutes given; test at the thickest point behind the head, where the flesh should lift cleanly from the bone.
- Wine-glassfulA Victorian wine-glass is roughly 2 fl oz, so half a glass is about 1 fl oz (2 tablespoons) each of stock and sherry. It is a scant amount by design — enough to keep the fish moist and concentrate into a sauce, not to poach it.
- Oiled butterNot oil, and not creamed butter: butter melted gently until liquid and clear, without browning. An ounce is 2 tablespoons.
- White stockA pale veal or chicken stock in the original sense, not fish fumet. A light chicken stock is the closest thing to hand; unsalted, since the dish is already seasoned.
- SherryUse a dry fino or manzanilla; it suits the shallots and keeps the pan liquor from turning cloying. Much of the sherry drunk and cooked with in Britain then ran sweeter than a modern fino.
- The fireproof dishChoose something shallow and only slightly larger than the fish — enameled cast iron or a gratin dish. In a roomy dish the ounce of butter and two ounces of liquid spread out and burn instead of basting.
- Preparing the fishA large sole here is most likely a whole Dover sole of about 1 to 1½ lb, skinned on the dark side, trimmed and gutted by the fishmonger. Skinless fillets will overcook well inside fifteen minutes; give them 8-10 minutes and less liquid still.
- BastingBaste once at about the eight-minute mark. Opening the oven more often than that in a fifteen-minute bake costs more heat than the basting returns.
- YieldOne large sole serves two generously, or one as a main course in the Victorian manner.
À la bordelaise is one of the loosest of the French garnish names: in meat cookery it points to red wine, shallots and poached bone marrow, while in fish cookery it usually means little more than shallots, parsley and wine, the shallot being the constant. Cassell's, compiled in London for households running on printed authority rather than apprenticeship, collected dozens of these à la headings and reduced each to a workable page of instructions, which is why the sherry sits here without comment. The instruction to serve in the cooking dish reflects the spread of fireproof earthenware and enamelled ware in late-Victorian kitchens, which let a cook send a dish to table without the loss of heat and sauce that came from turning it out. The price note, 1s. 6d. to 2s., is given for a whole large sole.