Baked Shad
Clean and scale a medium-sized shad. Cut off the head and tail, cut open sufficiently to take out the entrails. Wash in cold water and dry on a towel. Fill the opening with a dressing made of 2 cups of bread crumbs, the beaten yolk of 1 egg, a tablespoonful of melted butter, a teaspoonful of lemon juice, a few drops of onion juice, or a spoonful of finely minced onion, a tablespoonful of finely powdered sweet herbs, 2 or 3 crushed cloves, a half teaspoonful of salt, pepper, and a dash of Worcestershire sauce. Sew up the opening, lay the fish on the buttered sheet. Score the fish and put a slice of salt pork in each gash. Dredge lightly with flour, dust with salt and pepper, put it in the baking-pan, pour a cupful of water in the pan, and bake in a hot oven, fifteen minutes for each pound of fish. When done, lift the tin from the pan and slide the fish carefully on to a hot platter. Garnish with a border of potato balls and slices of lemon, and serve with a Hollandaise or sauce piquante.
A straightforward stuffed baked fish, written for a cook who could buy a whole shad in spring and knew how to lift it out of the pan in one piece. Two things need translating: the oven, and the timing.
- The sheet under the fish"Lay the fish on the buttered sheet" means a flat sheet of tin (or, today, parchment or foil) set inside the roasting pan so the whole fish can be lifted clear at the end. A doubled sling of parchment with overhanging ends does the same job and is the difference between serving a whole fish and serving a heap of it.
- Oven temperatureA "hot oven" in books of this period is usually taken as somewhere around 400-450F. At that heat a stuffed shad browns well, but the cup of water in the pan is doing real work as a steam buffer; do not omit it.
- TimingFifteen minutes per pound overcooks shad, which is oily but fine-fleshed. Modern practice is roughly 10 minutes per inch of thickness at the thickest point, or until the flesh reaches 140-145F and parts from the backbone. A 3 lb fish is usually done in 30-35 minutes, not 45.
- Sweet herbs"A tablespoonful of finely powdered sweet herbs" means a dried mixture, commonly some combination of parsley, thyme, marjoram and summer savory, rubbed to powder. A tablespoon of dried mixed herbs, or about three tablespoons chopped fresh, gives the same effect.
- Onion juiceOnion juice was got by grating an onion and pressing the pulp through a cloth. It gives flavour without visible pieces; the recipe already offers minced onion as the alternative, and either is fine.
- The clovesTwo or three cloves crushed into two cups of crumbs is assertive by current taste. Start with two, crushed to powder so no one bites into a whole one.
- Salt pork in the gashesScoring the fish and inserting salt pork bastes the flesh from inside as the fat renders. Thin slices of unsmoked bacon or pancetta do the same. Cut the scores about half an inch deep, spaced two inches apart along both sides.
- BonesShad is famously bone-ridden, with rows of floating intramuscular bones that ordinary baking will not soften. Buying it already boned, where a fishmonger offers it, saves the table a good deal of work; otherwise warn guests.
- YieldA "medium-sized" shad runs 3-4 lb whole and serves four to six once head, tail and bones are accounted for.