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Turbot, Patties or Vol-Au-Vents Of
Line some patty-pans with good puff-paste, or make some small vol-au-vents according to the directions already given (see PUFF-PASTE PATTIES, SMALL VOL-AU-VENTS OF). Bake them, and while still hot fill them with the following preparation. Take the white meat of the turbot freed from skin and bone, mince finely, and season with pepper and salt. Put into a stewpan two or three table-spoonfuls of thick cream, the quantity to be regulated by that of the fish. Thicken the cream by boiling it with a slice of butter rolled in flour, and when it is quite hot put the minced fish into it that it may heat also. It should be remembered that the seasoned mince should be of a good consistency, or it will soak through the pastry. Fill the hot patties or the hot vol-au-vents with the hot mince, and serv. Time, a few minutes to prepare the mince.
A leftover-fish dish dressed up in pastry, of the kind Victorian kitchens produced the day after a large boiled turbot appeared at table. The recipe assumes the fish is already cooked.
- Start with cooked fishNothing here cooks the turbot; the mince is only warmed through in the cream. Use fish already poached or baked, well drained, picked clean of skin and bone.
- Turbot substitutesWhole turbot is costly, and much of what is sold now is farmed. Halibut, brill or any firm white flatfish behaves the same way; avoid flaky, watery fillets that will collapse into the sauce.
- Patty-pansThese are small shallow tartlet or bun tins, roughly 2 to 2.5 inches across. A standard 12-hole tartlet tin or muffin tin works, though the shallower the better for puff pastry cases.
- Oven for puff pasteThe recipe gives no oven heat; in modern terms bake the cases at about 425F until well risen and dry inside. Bought all-butter puff pastry is a reasonable stand-in for the book's own puff-paste.
- The butter rolled in flourThis is beurre manié: equal parts soft butter and flour worked to a paste, about a teaspoon of each for two or three tablespoons of cream. Whisk it in and let the cream come to a boil so the flour cooks out.
- The point that mattersThe mince must be thick enough to hold its shape on a spoon. Anything looser will soak through the pastry, which is the failure this recipe explicitly warns against.
- Heat the fish, do not simmer itCooked turbot needs only a brief moment in the hot sauce. Held longer it dries and shreds, and the sauce can go grainy.
- Assemble at the last momentFill hot cases with hot mince and serve immediately. Cases can be baked ahead and crisped for a few minutes in a 350F oven before filling.
- YieldAbout a cup of finished mince, from roughly 8 oz of cooked fish, fills a dozen small patties. Enough for four as a first course.
Vol-au-vent, French for something like "flight in the wind," describes the way a case of puff paste rises hollow and almost weightless in a hot oven; it is generally traced to early nineteenth-century Parisian pastry work and was thoroughly absorbed into English cookery by the time Cassell's dictionary appeared in the 1870s. Turbot was the grandest of British flatfish, boiled whole in a diamond-shaped turbot kettle and served with lobster or shrimp sauce for a formal dinner, which is precisely why a recipe like this exists: a large turbot left a great deal behind, and a kitchen judged on economy turned that white meat into minced fillings for pastry cases rather than sending it downstairs. The instruction to keep the mince thick is the tell of a cook who has served a soggy patty and does not intend to again.