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STURGEON (a la Cardinal)
Take about two pounds of sturgeon. Cleanse thoroughly, and skin it. Bind it into shape firmly with tape, and lay in a saucepan, and with it an onion stuck with four cloves, a little piece of mace, a sliced carrot, a bunch of sweet herbs, a glass of vinegar, and as much water as will cover the fish. Let all boil gently until the sturgeon is done. Lay it on a dish, pour lobster sauce over it, and serve. A few prawns and green parsley may be used as a garnish. The time required to boil sturgeon will vary according to the size and age of the fish from which the piece was taken--from three-quarters of an hour to one hour. Probable cost, from 1s. 6d. per pound. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A plain court-bouillon poach dressed up with a rich shellfish sauce. Almost everything here still works; the timing does not.
- The hinge: ignore the cooking timeThree-quarters of an hour to an hour will turn sturgeon into cotton wool. It is a dense, meaty fish but it still cooks at fish speed – reckon roughly 10 minutes per inch of thickness at a bare shiver, and pull it at an internal temperature of about 130–140F (55–60C). A two-pound piece is usually done in 15–20 minutes.
- \"Boil gently\" means do not boilA rolling boil will shred the outside before the centre is warm and will cloud the liquid. Bring the pan to a bare tremble, then hold it there, uncovered or barely covered.
- Sourcing the fishWild sturgeon is protected across most of its range and CITES-listed; what you buy today is farmed, usually white sturgeon or a hybrid, sold as steaks or loin. It is firm enough to hold together without much help. A firm-fleshed substitute such as monkfish tail takes the same treatment.
- Binding with tapeVictorian \"tape\" is cotton ribbon, used to keep a boned or rolled piece in shape. Butcher's twine at half-inch intervals does the same job; a plain steak or loin section needs no binding at all.
- A glass of vinegarThe recipe does not specify what glass; a wineglassful in this period was commonly reckoned at about 2 fl oz (a quarter cup), though larger readings are found. With two pounds of fish and just enough water to cover, that makes a sharp court-bouillon ack it it back if your pan is small.
- Mace and the clouted onionMace is the lacy outer covering of nutmeg, sold in blades; a pinch of ground nutmeg is the nearest substitute but far less aromatic. The onion stuck with cloves – an onion pique – goes in whole and is discarded.
- Lobster sauceThe classical version is a béchamel or fish velouté enriched with lobster butter, pounded coral and diced lobster meat, though Victorian English lobster sauces were often simply melted butter with coral and lobster meat. Either way the red tint is what earns the dish the name à la Cardinal. A modern shortcut is a velouté made with some of the poaching liquor, finished with butter creamed with lobster or prawn shells and a spoonful of tomato paste for colour.
- YieldTwo pounds serving five or six assumes a full Victorian menu of several courses. As a main course today it feeds three or four.
Sturgeon carried a peculiar prestige in Britain: by ancient custom it was a royal fish, meaning a sturgeon caught in British waters or cast ashore was offered to the Crown, and that association kept it on grand menus long after most people had stopped seeing one. Cassell's quotes it at 1s. 6d. a pound and upward, which put it well above the price of cod or haddock at the time – firmly a dish for a household with a cook. The name à la Cardinal is French kitchen shorthand for a preparation finished with a red-tinted lobster sauce, generally traced to the colour of a cardinal's robes, and it was applied to sole, turbot and quenelles as freely as to sturgeon. That an entry like this sits in a general English dictionary of cookery says a good deal about how thoroughly the classical French repertoire had been absorbed into ambitious Victorian home cooking. The fish itself has gone the other way since: overfishing and dam-building collapsed the wild populations, and the sturgeon on sale now is a farmed animal, largely a by-product of the caviar trade.