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Turbot, Baked
Empty, wash, and dry a moderate-sized turbot. Rub with butter the inside of the dish in which it is to be baked, and sprinkle upon it a little pepper and salt, grated nutmeg, and finely-chopped parsley. Place the turbot upon this, and sprinkle a little more seasoning on the upper part of the fish. Put two or three ounces of butter broken in little pieces here and there upon it, dredge it well with flour, and add two glassfuls of light wine, and, if it is at hand, one or two table-spoonfuls of oysterbroth or mushroom-juice. Bake the fish in a moderate oven, and when it is done enough lift it carefully upon the dish on which it is to be served, keep it hot, and prepare the sauce as follows. Pour the liquor from the baking-dish into a saucepan, thicken with a little flour and butter, stir over the fire for a minute or two, and then serve in a tureen. The sauce may be varied by the addition of a little essence of anchovy, nutmeg, cayenne, and lemon-juice; or a little white sauce may be added, or a dozen mushrooms, or a dozen scalded and bearded oysters. Garnish the turbot with scraped horseradish and sliced lemon or fried bread or green parsley. Time to bake the turbot, twenty to thirty minutes, according to size. Probable cost, uncertain. Sufficient, a moderate-sized turbot for five or six persons.
A whole flatfish baked in butter and wine, with the pan liquor turned into the sauce. Most of the work is in judging when a thick, bony flatfish is done and in translating a few Victorian measures.
- "Empty" the fishThis means gut it and remove the gills; scaling is not needed, as turbot has tubercles rather than true scales. Ask the fishmonger to do it, and to trim the fins.
- Buying turbotWild turbot is expensive and often sold as steaks rather than whole. Farmed turbot runs small, around 2-3 lb, which suits a domestic oven; brill, halibut steaks or a large plaice all behave similarly here.
- A glassfulA Victorian wineglass is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz, so two glassfuls is roughly half a cup. "Light wine" means an unfortified table wine rather than sherry or Madeira; a dry white suits the dish.
- Oyster-broth and mushroom-juiceOyster-broth is the liquor drained from shucked oysters; mushroom-juice is the dark liquid pressed or salted out of mushrooms, sold at the time as a bottled essence. Reserved oyster liquor or a spoonful of concentrated mushroom cooking liquid does the same job of adding savour to the pan sauce.
- A moderate ovenNo figure is given; a moderate oven is conventionally taken as somewhere around 350F. The dish should be shallow and just large enough to hold the fish, so the small quantity of wine does not evaporate before it can become sauce.
- The timing is for a small fishTwenty to thirty minutes suits a fish of two or three pounds. A large turbot several inches thick at the shoulder will need considerably longer; go by the flesh, which should part cleanly from the backbone, or an internal temperature of about 130-135F at the thickest point.
- Oysters in the sauce"Scalded and bearded" means dipped briefly in their own hot liquor and the frill trimmed off. Add them to the finished sauce off the heat, or they toughen within a minute of boiling.
- The sauceThe flour dredged over the fish will already have thickened the pan liquor a little. Whisk in beurre manie a small piece at a time and taste before adding anchovy essence, which is salty.
- ServingFive or six as a main course. Lift the fish with two wide spatulas or a slotted fish slice; a cooked turbot breaks apart easily along the flake lines.
Turbot was among the most prized fish on the Victorian table, and grand households kept a diamond-shaped turbot kettle solely for poaching one whole. Baking, as here, was the smaller establishment's answer to the same problem: how to cook a broad, awkward flatfish without a specialist vessel, and how to keep the juices that a kettle of salted water would wash away. The note that the cost is "uncertain" is telling. Cassell's gives a price for nearly everything, but turbot's market price swung wildly with the day's landings. The accompaniments here, oyster liquor, mushroom essence and anchovy, are the standard Victorian savoury reinforcements, all of them ways of deepening a sauce.