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TURBOT (a la Creme Gratine)
Make the fish hot in some good cream sauce, according to the last recipe. Arrange it neatly in a dish in layers, first a little fish, then a little sauce, and let sauce be the uppermost layer. Strew seasoned crumbs and grated Parmesan lightly over the whole, pour over this two or three table-spoonfuls of very thick cream, and put the dish into the oven to get quite hot. Brown the surface with a salamander or red-hot fire shovel, and serve very hot. Time, altogether, half an hour or more.
A gratin of already-cooked fish, and the whole point is that nothing gets cooked twice. The turbot goes in hot, the dish only needs to come up to temperature, and the colour comes from the top heat at the end.
- The hinge: the fish is already cookedThis is a dish for poached or leftover turbot, not raw fillets. The recipe's "half an hour or more" is the time for the whole operation, not for the oven alone; even so, cooked turbot dries out quickly, so a moderate oven (around 375F) for 10-12 minutes, just until the sauce bubbles at the edges, is enough, then colour the top under the broiler for 1-2 minutes.
- "According to the last recipe"Cassell's is pointing back to a cream sauce given in the immediately preceding recipe. Whatever its exact composition, it must be thick enough to hold in layers, or the whole gratin floods.
- Salamander or red-hot fire shovelBoth were tools for browning a surface with radiant heat from above, held an inch or two off the food. A broiler on its highest setting, with the dish on the top shelf, is the direct equivalent.
- TurbotWild North Atlantic turbot is expensive and often unavailable; farmed turbot is sold in Europe. Halibut, brill or any firm-fleshed white flatfish behaves the same way here. Avoid flaky, delicate fish, which will collapse into the sauce.
- Seasoned crumbsDry white breadcrumbs with salt and pepper, often with a scrape of nutmeg or mace or a little herb. Modern packaged fine crumbs work; panko browns unevenly under such a short blast of heat.
- Very thick creamDouble or heavy cream, 36% fat or better. Anything lighter will thin the sauce beneath the crumbs and separate at broiler heat.
- Parmesan with fishUse a light hand, as the recipe says. A tablespoon or two grated fine is enough to help the crust brown without overpowering the turbot.
- YieldAbout 1 lb of cooked fish and a pint of sauce fills a 9-inch gratin dish and serves four as a light main course, or six as a first course.
Gratiné is a way of accounting for expensive fish twice over: turbot was the grandest flatfish on an English table, bought whole for a dinner party, poached in a diamond-shaped turbot kettle, and served with lobster or oyster sauce. What came back to the kitchen was too costly to waste, so it reappeared the next day in cream sauce under crumbs and cheese. The point being taught is the method, layering a cooked protein with a thick sauce and glazing the top, which applies equally to sole, chicken or hard-boiled eggs. The red-hot fire shovel is a reminder of how the browning was managed before overhead gas grills, in a kitchen where a range fire was burning anyway and iron tools were always within reach of it.