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Whiting, Boiled
Whiting plainly boiled is sometimes recommended for invalids, as it is considered light and easy of digestion; but it is insipid food, and this method of cooking the fish cannot be recommended. Large whiting should be chosen for boiling. Skin the fish, and skewer it with its tail in its mouth. Put it into boiling water slightly salted, clear off the scum frequently, and simmer the fish till the eyes start and the flesh will leave the bone. Take it up the moment it is done enough. Drain it, remove the skewer, put the whiting on a hot dish covered with a napkin, garnish with parsley, and send melted butter, anchovy shrimp, parsley, white, or Dutch sauce to table with it; or, if preferred, merely mix a little fresh butter lightly with the flakes of the fish. Time to boil, from five to eight minutes, according to size. Probable cost, 4d. to 8d. each. Sufficient, one whiting for each person.
A plain poached fish that stands or falls on timing and on what goes over it. The book itself is lukewarm about the dish, and the note about seasoning the water is worth taking seriously.
- Know which whiting you haveThe book means Merlangius merlangus, the small North Atlantic whiting sold whole in British fishmongers. In the United States "whiting" usually means silver hake, a different but similarly lean, soft-fleshed fish; it will cook in about the same time.
- Skewer, or don'tCurling the fish so the tail is fixed in the mouth was a presentation convention and helps a whole fish fit the pan. A wooden skewer or a length of kitchen twine does the job. Skipping it changes nothing but the look.
- Salt the water properly'Slightly salted' is the weak point here for a modern palate. Salt to about 1 tablespoon per litre, or poach in a court-bouillon with a bay leaf, a few peppercorns and a splash of vinegar.
- Never let it boilNever let it boil hard -- The recipe puts the fish into boiling water and then simmers it; keep it at a bare shiver from that point rather than a rolling boil. Whiting flesh is delicate and will shred and cloud the liquid if it is knocked about.
- Judging doneness'Till the eyes start' is a real indicator on a whole fish, but the reliable test is the second one given: the flesh parts cleanly from the backbone at the thickest point. The five to eight minutes given varies with size, as the book says.
- The sauces named"Melted butter" in Victorian usage is the flour-thickened English butter sauce, not clarified butter. "Dutch sauce" is the period's hollandaise, egg yolks and butter with lemon or vinegar. Anchovy, shrimp and parsley sauces are all the same white sauce base with the flavouring stirred in.
- The napkinThe folded napkin under the fish absorbs draining poaching liquid so the sauce is not thinned on the plate. A sheet of kitchen paper on a warmed dish, removed before serving, does the same thing.
- Yield and costOne whiting per person, as stated. The prices, 4d. to 8d. in pre-decimal pence, mark this as a cheap fish.
Boiled whiting belongs to the nineteenth-century category of invalid cookery, the small repertoire of bland, low-fat, easily chewed dishes prescribed for the sick and convalescent, which occupied a chapter in many English household manuals of the period. Whiting was well suited to the purpose: abundant and cheap in British markets, soft-fleshed, almost fat-free and mild to the point of blandness. The book is unusually blunt about the trade-off, conceding the digestibility and then dismissing the result as insipid. The curled presentation, tail skewered into the mouth, was standard for whiting and is often said to derive from the practical need to fit a long fish into a round pan or dish; by the Victorian period it had hardened into a convention of the fishmonger's and the kitchen alike. The list of accompanying sauces is the real point of the entry, since every one of them exists to supply what the fish itself does not.