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Baked Smelts with Oyster Force-meat
Clean, wash, and wipe dry, then fill with a force-meat made of 1 part fine crumbs, 3 parts finely minced oysters, a tablespoonful of melted butter to each cupful of the force-meat, seasoned with salt, paprika, and a little minced parsley.
Sew the fish up with long stitches; lay on the grating of your covered roaster, having a little boiling water under the grating. Bake twenty minutes, basting once with butter when nearly done. Serve with lemon sauce. The threads should be cut carefully and drawn out before serving.
A stuffed-fish recipe that assumes a covered roasting pan with an internal rack, and gives no oven temperature. Both are easily supplied; the proportions of the force-meat are the part worth reading twice.
- Oven temperatureNo heat is stated. A moderately hot oven, around 400-425F, suits a covered roaster; smelts are small and the enclosed steam does much of the work, so a slower oven is likely to leave the stuffing pallid and the fish flabby.
- The force-meat is measured by volumeOne part crumbs to three parts minced oysters, then a tablespoon of melted butter for each cupful of the finished mixture. Weighing will mislead you here; scoop the minced oysters and the crumbs in the same cup.
- Drain the oystersMinced oysters give up a great deal of liquor, and the crumbs are the only thing binding the stuffing. Drain them well before mincing and reserve the liquor for the sauce, or the force-meat will run out of the fish as it heats.
- Buying and cleaning smeltsSmelts run roughly 4 to 6 inches and 1 to 2 oz each. They are gutted through the belly; the backbone can be slipped out with the head left on, which gives more room for stuffing, and a fishmonger will do it if asked.
- Sewing the fishUse a trussing needle and plain cotton kitchen twine, not synthetic thread, and take the long loose stitches the recipe specifies so the whole length pulls out in one piece. Count your stitches so none is overlooked at the table.
- The covered roasterAny roasting pan with a rack and a tight lid will serve. The boiling water goes beneath the rack only, never touching the fish, so the smelts steam-roast rather than stew.
- Twenty minutes is about rightIn a covered pan at a brisk heat, stuffed smelts should be done in about twenty minutes, when the force-meat is set and the flesh parts from the bone. Push much past that and they collapse.
- Lemon sauceMost likely a butter-and-flour sauce sharpened with lemon juice rather than a sweet pudding sauce, though the recipe does not say. The reserved oyster liquor, added to the liquid, is an obvious improvement.
- YieldThe recipe states no yield. Smelts of this size are usually reckoned several to a serving, fewer as a first course, and the quantity of force-meat wanted will depend on how many fish you have.