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Sole, Savoury Of
Take the remains of some cooked soles, chop them up rather finely, then mix them with a table-spoonful of essence of anchovies, a little cayenne pepper, and an ounce of butter. Simmer for five minutes, then put the mixture on squares or rounds of hot buttered toast, sprinkle a few picked shrimps over, and garnish with rings of hard-boiled eggs.
A Victorian savoury — the small hot course served after the sweet — built from leftover fish. It comes together in under ten minutes and depends entirely on the toast being crisp.
- Essence of anchoviesA thin, salty Victorian bottling; the nearest modern stand-in is a teaspoon of anchovy paste loosened with a little water (Worcestershire sauce will do at a pinch, though it brings vinegar and spice of its own). Modern anchovy paste is more concentrated, so start with less than the stated tablespoon and taste.
- QuantitiesNo weight is given for the fish. As a rough guide, the picked flesh of two cooked sole fillets, with the 1 oz butter, will cover about four small rounds of toast; adjust to what you have.
- Pick the fish over twiceSole bones are fine and pale and easy to miss in chopped flesh. This is the step that decides whether the dish is pleasant, since the mixture is barely cooked again and nothing will soften a bone.
- Simmer means warm throughFive minutes in butter is ample for fish that is already cooked; keep the heat low and stir. Hard boiling will dry the sole and split the butter into grease.
- Shrimps"Picked shrimps" are small brown shrimp, shelled — cooked cold-water shrimp are the practical substitute. Add them at the end, off the heat, or they toughen.
- ToastButter it and use it hot; the mixture is moist and will sink into cool toast within a minute or two. Cut the rounds or squares before you finish the fish, not after.
- Seasoning orderAnchovy essence and shrimp both carry salt. Season with cayenne first, taste, and add salt only at the end if it needs it.
Savouries were a fixture of the late-Victorian and Edwardian dinner in Britain — a small, sharp, hot mouthful served after the sweet and before dessert fruit. Anchovy-and-butter mixtures on toast were among the workhorses of the genre, and Cassell's treats them as a way of using up expensive fish that had already appeared at table. Sole was among the most prized of the flat fish in London, and little of it was wasted; shrimps and sliced hard-boiled egg were a common garnish of the period, doing the same decorative work as a scattering of parsley would now. The separate savoury course declined in Britain over the decades after the First World War, though its descendants — potted shrimp, anchovy toast, Scotch woodcock — survive on menus that trade on nostalgia.