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Sole, with Mushrooms
Clean, but do not skin, a pair of moderate-sized fresh soles. Lay them in a saucepan, cover with equal quantities of milk and water, and add an ounce of butter and a table-spoonful of strained lemon-juice. Bring them gently to the point of boiling, draw them back a little, and let them simmer gently until done enough. Take them up, drain them, put them on a hot dish, and pour over them three-quarters of a pint of white mushroom sauce (see MUSHROOMS, SAUCE OF, WHITE). Time to simmer the soles, six or seven minutes after the liquor boils. Probable cost, 2s. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A gentle milk-and-water poach, closer to a French court-bouillon au lait than to boiling. The whole point is that the liquid never boils once the fish is in it.
- "Draw them back a little"On a coal range this meant sliding the pan to a cooler part of the top. On a modern hob, bring the liquid just to the first tremble, then drop the heat to the lowest setting so the surface only shivers. A rolling boil will tear the fillets off the bone and cloud the milk.
- The fishA pair of moderate soles, cooked whole on the bone; the recipe specifies neither variety nor weight. Lemon sole, witch or plaice will stand in; skinless fillets will not, as they cook in two to three minutes and fall apart in a wide pan.
- Leaving the skin onThe recipe gives no reason for the instruction, though skin left on helps hold the fish together during poaching and can be lifted off once cooked, before saucing.
- The poaching liquidEqual milk and water, enough to just cover; the recipe gives no measure. The milk was held to keep the flesh white, and the lemon juice to firm it.
- TimingSix or seven minutes at a bare simmer is accurate for whole soles of this size. They are done when the flesh at the thickest point behind the head lifts cleanly from the backbone.
- Sauce quantityThree-quarters of an imperial pint is 15 fl oz, a little over 400 ml. Any white mushroom sauce works: a bechamel or veloute base finished with sliced button mushrooms sweated in butter, kept pale by not letting them colour.
- Cost and yield"2s." is two shillings, a Victorian price and no guide to anything now. Four to five servings assumes the fish is part of a longer meal; as a main course two whole soles serve two generously.
Cassell's belonged to the era when sole was among the most prized fish on the British fishmonger's slab, landed from the North Sea and Channel and carried inland by rail to city markets, which is one reason a Victorian dictionary of cookery can devote many entries to it. Poaching in milk and water rather than plain salted water is recommended for white fish in a number of the period's cookery books: the milk was believed to keep the flesh from discolouring, and the lemon juice to firm it and brighten the flavour. The pairing with a pale mushroom sauce follows the French repertoire that was strongly influential on English cookbooks of the period, and cross-references to a separate sauce entry, as here, were a common organising device in such books.