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TURBOT (au Gratin)
Take the remains of cooked turbot, and divide the flesh into square pieces of an equal size, after having taken away all skin and bone. Sprinkle with bread-crumbs mixed with a little minced parsley and seasoning. Lay the fish in a baking-dish with two ounces of butter, and bake for a quarter of an hour, basting frequently. Take the remains of the shrimp or lobster sauce that accompanied the turbot, add to it a little essence of anchovies and a squeeze of lemon, and make it hot. Arrange the fish neatly on a dish, and pour the sauce over it. Garnish with parsley and cut lemon.
A leftovers dish from the era when a whole turbot was boiled for a dinner party and the remains had to reappear the next day. Most of the work is in the sauce, which the original assumes you already have in the larder.
- Oven temperatureNo heat is given. A moderate oven, 350-375F, is right here: the fish is already cooked, and the fifteen minutes are for heating it through and colouring the crumbs. Anything hotter dries the flakes before the top browns.
- Turbot and substitutesWild turbot is expensive and often hard to find; farmed turbot and halibut are the closest in texture, and any firm white fish that holds in flakes will do. Brill was the traditional cheaper stand-in and still is.
- Starting from scratchIf you have no leftovers, poach about 1 lb of fillet in salted water or court-bouillon until just set, cool it, and proceed. Undercook it slightly, since it gets a second fifteen minutes in the oven.
- Essence of anchoviesA Victorian bottled seasoning of anchovy, salt and spice. Anchovy paste or a mashed salted anchovy fillet gives the same effect; start with half a teaspoon in a cup of sauce and taste, as modern pastes are saltier than the sauce expects.
- The leftover sauceShrimp or lobster sauce is a butter-and-cream base and should have been refrigerated promptly. Bring it to a full simmer when reheating, thin with a spoonful of milk or fish stock if it has set stiff, and do not hold it warm for long stretches.
- BreadcrumbsDry crumbs, not fresh, or they turn to paste under the butter. Toss them with the parsley and seasoning before scattering so the herb is distributed.
- BastingTwo ounces of butter for a dish of fish is generous, and the frequent basting is what keeps the exposed pieces from drying. Baste two or three times; if the crumbs are colouring too fast, lay a sheet of foil over the top.
- YieldNo quantity is given. The remains of a dinner-party turbot would probably have stretched to three or four as a luncheon or supper dish; reckon on 4-6 oz of cooked fish per person.
Au gratin in nineteenth-century English cookery generally meant a dish finished with crumbs and browned, rather than the cheese-heavy sense the phrase later acquired; the crumbs, butter and a hot oven were largely the whole of it. Turbot was among the grandest of British fish, served whole in its own lozenge-shaped kettle at formal dinners, and usually boiled and sent up with lobster or shrimp sauce. A fish that large left a great deal behind, and Cassell's, like other household manuals of the period, treats the second appearance of an expensive joint or fish as a matter of course rather than an apology. The instruction to reuse yesterday's shellfish sauce rather than make a fresh one is characteristic of a kitchen with limited cold storage and a strict eye on the household books.