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Tench, Baked
Clean and scale the tench very carefully, and remove the gills, as they are always muddy. Rub the fish with lemon-juice, and let it lie for an hour; then put it into a tin, sprinkle over it two shallots finely minced, and pour over it four ounces of clarified butter or dripping. Cover with oiled paper, and let it bake gently until done enough. Baste frequently. Serve on a hot dish, and pour over it a sauce prepared as follows. Mix a table-spoonful of dried flour smoothly with three ounces of butter, and pour in a quarter of a pint of boiling water; add gradually the third of a pint of milk or cream. Let the sauce boil up, then stir into it four moderate-sized gherkins finely minced and a table-spoonful of strained lemon-juice, and it will be ready for use. Serve very hot. Time to bake, according to the size and thickness of the fish. Probable cost, uncertain, tench being seldom offered for sale. Sufficient for two persons.
A plain baked freshwater fish with a quick lemon-and-gherkin white sauce. The vagueness of the original — "bake gently until done enough" — is the main thing to pin down.
- The fish itselfTench is a European cyprinid, muddy-tasting and bony, and in Britain it is a coarse fish that is effectively never sold for the table. Carp, whole tilapia, or a small mirror carp behave the same way in the oven; any firm whole freshwater fish of 1.5–2 lb will suit the method and the sauce.
- Why the gills and the lemonThe instruction to remove the gills and rub the fish with lemon juice is the practical heart of the recipe. Bottom-feeding cyprinids can carry an earthy, muddy taste, usually attributed to geosmin taken up from the water; scrubbing off the slime, pulling the gills, and an hour in acid are the traditional ways of reducing it.
- Oven heatThe recipe says only 'bake gently' and gives no oven term; a moderate oven of roughly 325-350F suits it. A whole fish of about 2 lb takes somewhere around 25-35 minutes at that heat; go by the flesh at the thickest point behind the head lifting cleanly from the backbone, or 145F on a thermometer.
- Oiled paperOiled paper is greaseproof paper brushed with oil, laid loosely over the fish to keep the surface from drying. Parchment does the same job; foil works but traps more steam, so lift it for the last five minutes if you want colour.
- Clarified butter or drippingFour ounces (half a cup) is a generous basting bath rather than an ingredient you eat. Clarified butter is specified because milk solids scorch during the repeated basting; ghee is the direct equivalent.
- Imperial liquid measuresA quarter of an imperial pint is 5 fl oz (about 140 ml, a scant 2/3 US cup) and a third of a pint is about 6 2/3 fl oz (about 190 ml, a generous 3/4 US cup). With 3 oz butter and only a tablespoon of flour this sauce is deliberately loose and rich, closer to a butter sauce than a bechamel.
- "Dried flour"Flour was spread in a warm oven and dried to drive off moisture so it would blend without lumping. Ordinary plain flour needs no such treatment; simply work it into the softened butter and add the boiling water off the heat, whisking, before the milk.
- YieldSufficient for two as written; the recipe does not state a fish size. The sauce quantity will comfortably stretch to four if you bake a larger fish.
Tench (Tinca tinca) belongs to the long era when English cooks took fish from ponds and rivers rather than fishmongers, and the recipe's own note -- "probable cost, uncertain, tench being seldom offered for sale" -- shows how far outside the market it had fallen. Railways and ice were making sea fish cheaper and more reliable in inland towns through the middle decades of the century, and muddy pond fish slipped out of the market and into the angler's kitchen, where it has largely stayed. Tench was nevertheless a monastery and manor-pond fish for centuries, valued because it survives in warm, low-oxygen water that would kill trout; it was also known as the "doctor fish" from the old and unfounded belief that other fish rubbed against its slime to cure their wounds. The gherkin-and-lemon sauce is the sort of sharp, acidic sauce Victorian cookery books commonly paired with rich or earthy freshwater fish.