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Turbot, Scalloped
Take the remains of cold turbot, lift the flesh from the bones, and remove the skin. Weigh the white meat, and for each pound allow six ounces of grated bread-crumbs seasoned with salt, cayenne, and grated nutmeg. Cut the fish into small pieces, season with salt and pepper, and mix with it either a table-spoonful of cold sauce or two ounces of clarified butter. Butter some scallop-shells rather thickly. Spread a layer of seasoned crumbs at the bottom of each, then lay in the fish, and sprinkle more crumbs thickly on the top. Place little pieces of butter here and there on the surface, and put the shells in a brisk oven. When they are quite hot lift them out, and serve the fish in the shells neatly arranged on a folded napkin. If scallop-shells are not at hand, a small baking-dish may be used instead. If preferred, the same quantity of mashed potatoes may be used instead of the bread-crumbs. Time to bake the fish in the shells, a quarter of an hour.
A Victorian way of using up cold cooked fish, and still a sound one. The whole dish hangs on the fish already being cooked — this is reheating, not cooking from raw.
- Oven heatA "brisk oven" is usually taken as somewhere around 400-450F. Fifteen minutes at that heat is enough to crisp the crumbs and heat the fish through; longer will dry it out.
- ProportionsSix ounces of crumbs per pound of fish is generous. If you prefer the fish to dominate, halve the crumb weight.
- "Cold sauce"Presumably leftover sauce from the original service of the turbot; the recipe does not say which. Any cold béchamel or a few spoonfuls of thick cream will do the same job of binding.
- Clarified butterUsed because it keeps without going rancid and adds no water to the mixture. Ordinary melted butter works; clarify it if you want the crumbs crisper.
- Scallop shellsScallop shells hold roughly half a cup each. Ceramic gratin dishes or ramekins of similar size are direct substitutes.
- Turbot substitutesTurbot is expensive and often farmed now. Any firm cooked white flatfish, such as halibut or brill, behaves the same way. Avoid flaky fish that collapses into paste.
- Bones and skinTurbot has a heavy, gelatinous skin and stout bones. Pick the flesh over carefully by hand rather than trusting the eye, since the bones are broad and easy to miss in flakes.
- YieldOne pound of picked fish fills about six scallop shells, enough for six as a first course or three as a light main.
Turbot was the grandest fish on a Victorian table, served whole on a special diamond-shaped turbotière and dressed with lobster or hollandaise sauce for large dinners. A fish that size inevitably left remains, and a book like Cassell's — aimed at households running a formal table on a careful budget — devotes as much attention to the second appearance of a dish as to the first. Here the fish is cut into small pieces and baked in scallop shells, which makes a portion look composed rather than salvaged. Mashed potato is offered in place of crumbs, almost as an afterthought.