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STURGEON, BAKED (a la Reine)
This is an expensive though a superior dish. Take a piece of sturgeon weighing about four pounds, cleanse thoroughly, skin it, roll, and bind it firmly with tape; put it into a saucepan with a glassful of vinegar and as much water as will cover it, and add a carrot, an onion, a little salt and pepper, and a bunch of sweet herbs. Let it simmer gently until done enough. Drain it, and let it cool. Prepare as much forcemeat of whiting as will entirely cover the surface of the sturgeon (see QUENELLES OF COD, SALMON, ETC.). Lay this on the fish, and smooth it with the blade of a knife dipped in hot water. Ornament with pink tongue, black truffles, and pickled gherkins cut into fancy shapes. Roll it in buttered paper, and fasten securely. Put it into a baking-dish, pour under it about a pint of the liquor in which it was boiled, and bake it, basting occasionally with its liquor, in a gentle oven. Place it on a dish, garnish with prawns and tufts of green parsley, and pour over it or serve with it a little well-made ravigote sauce. Time to bake the sturgeon, three-quarters of an hour. Sufficient for eight or ten persons. Probable cost, sturgeon, from 1s. 6d. per pound.
A cold-poached, mousseline-coated centrepiece in the grand nineteenth-century style: the fish is cooked twice, once in a court-bouillon and again in paper under a coat of fish forcemeat. The hinge is the second cooking — the whiting coat is raw when it goes in and must set gently, so the oven has to stay low and the fish has to stay moist.
- Sourcing the sturgeonAll wild sturgeon are protected under CITES and wild-caught meat is not legally sold in most markets. Farmed sturgeon (usually Siberian or white sturgeon, a by-product of caviar production) is available from good fishmongers and is what to buy; it is firm, dense and closer to veal than to cod in texture.
- A gentle ovenThe book gives no figure; a gentle oven is generally taken as something around 300-325F. Anything hotter risks curdling and cracking the whiting forcemeat before the interior is warmed through, and three-quarters of an hour at that heat suits a 4 lb roll that is already cooked and cold.
- A glassful of vinegarThe recipe says only 'a glassful'; a Victorian wineglass is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz, a quarter cup. White wine vinegar suits; the acid firms the flesh and keeps the poaching liquor clean.
- Simmer "until done enough"For a bound 4 lb roll, roughly 10-12 minutes per pound at a bare shiver, never a rolling boil. Standard modern guidance for fish is an internal 145F, though cooks after a moister result stop nearer 135-140F; either way the roll is baked again afterwards. Sturgeon is firm and collagen-rich and turns dry and cottony if pushed much past that.
- Tape and buttered paperThe tape is cotton kitchen tape; butcher's string or a cheesecloth sling does the same job. Buttered paper means buttered parchment — a sheet of parchment inside a loose foil wrap keeps the shape without steaming the coating off.
- Forcemeat of whitingA pounded fish forcemeat; modern kitchens make it as a mousseline of skinless white fish with egg white and cream, while Victorian quenelle forcemeats were often bound with a panada and whole egg. Whiting in the European sense is not widely sold elsewhere; pollock, haddock or hake behave much the same way. Keep everything ice-cold or the mixture breaks.
- Pink tongue and truffles"Pink tongue" is brined ox tongue, sold cooked and ready to slice; it is there for colour against the pale forcemeat. Preserved truffle or black olive paste gives the same contrast for a fraction of the price.
- Ravigote sauceIn this context the warm version: a velouté or reduced court-bouillon finished with butter, shallot, chervil, tarragon and chives and sharpened with a little vinegar. The cold, vinaigrette-style ravigote also works and is easier alongside a fish served barely warm.
- YieldThe original's eight to ten is reasonable as a main course, and a bound roll of this kind slices into rounds.
Sturgeon occupied an odd rank in British kitchens: as a royal fish it belonged by ancient prerogative to the Crown when taken in English waters, and Victorian cooks often encountered it imported, pickled in kegs from the Baltic and Russia, or fresh at considerable expense — Cassell's 1s. 6d. a pound was well above the usual price of cod. The a la reine label in books of this kind is not a fixed formula; here it attaches to a decorative treatment — poached, masked with a pale forcemeat, inlaid with tongue and truffle in cut shapes, and garnished with shellfish — of a sort common in the professional kitchens of the period. Dishes like this were built to be looked at before they were eaten, which is why so much of the instruction concerns smoothing and ornamenting rather than seasoning. Farmed sturgeon has since made the fish obtainable again, though it is now raised chiefly for its roe.