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Trout, in Jelly
Wash the fish carefully, and form them into rings with their tails in their mouths. Boil water with a little vinegar, salt, a shallot, or clove of garlic, and any approved seasoning. Set it aside to cool, and when cold lay in the fish, and simmer for a few minutes after the water has just come to the boil. Lift the fish out carefully, drain them, and baste with clear fish jelly. When the fish basting has set lay on another coat, until the fish are nicely covered. Arrange and garnish to taste.
A cold decorated fish dish from the age of the buffet table. The instructions are terse in the original, and two things are left unsaid: how to keep the fish in a ring, and what "clear fish jelly" actually is.
- The hinge: start the fish in cold liquidThe court-bouillon is boiled with its aromatics, then cooled completely before the trout go in. Fish lowered into boiling liquid tears at the skin and curls out of shape; brought up slowly from cold, it holds its ring and stays firm enough to coat.
- Forming the ringsPass a trussing needle and fine cotton thread through the tail and out through the jaw, or simply thread a wooden cocktail stick through both. Do this before poaching. Small trout of 6-8 oz bend willingly; anything over a pound will not.
- Timing"A few minutes after the water has just come to the boil" means barely a shiver on the surface, 3-4 minutes for small trout, then off the heat. Overcooked trout flakes apart when you lift it and no amount of jelly will disguise the damage.
- Clear fish jellyA fish aspic; the original does not say how it is made, but the poaching liquid will serve: strain it through muslin, reduce if weak, and set with gelatine at roughly 1 oz powdered gelatine (about 4 envelopes) per quart of liquid for a coating jelly. Clarify with lightly beaten egg white if it is cloudy, since the whole point of the dish is transparency.
- "Baste" means glazeThe jelly is applied at the point where it is syrupy but not yet set, spooned over chilled fish. Chill between coats, 10-15 minutes each, and expect three or four thin coats. A single thick one slides off.
- Vinegar quantityThe original gives none. A tablespoon or two per quart of water is enough to firm the flesh and hold the colour; more will make the poaching liquid too sharp to use as the jelly base.
- Garnish and servingDecoration goes on between coats, sealed under the final layer: blanched tarragon leaves, thin rounds of cucumber, capers, strips of pimento. Serve cold, one trout per person, with a cucumber salad or green mayonnaise.
- KeepingAssemble the day it is eaten, or the day before at most, and keep refrigerated. Aspic tends to weep and soften after a day or so, and the surface loses its shine.
Cold fish under aspic belongs to the grand nineteenth-century buffet, where dishes were judged by the eye before the fork: the *chaud-froid* and glazed cold entrée were staples of the professional larder cook, and Cassell's is passing a professional technique to a household audience. The trout curled with its tail in its mouth has a name of its own in French kitchens — *truite en colère*, the angry trout — though the term is usually applied to the fried version; the shape is practical as well as decorative, since a ring sits neatly on a round dish and takes a glaze evenly. The recipe does not say where the jelly comes from; in kitchens of the period fish bones, skin and heads were simmered as a matter of course, sometimes helped along by isinglass.