Boiled Halibut
Have a cut of halibut from 2 to 3 inches in thickness. Rub with salt, and pour over it 2 spoonfuls of lemon juice and let it stand where it will be kept cold for an hour. Put it in the fish-kettle and cover well with cold water, bring quickly to a boil, then keep it boiling gently until done. Lift carefully to the hot platter without breaking, garnish with slices of lemon, hard-boiled egg, and serve with plain drawn butter or cream sauce or chop the egg and add to the cream sauce.
A plain poached fish of the sort that anchored American fish courses around 1900. The one thing worth changing is the heat: halibut is lean and firms up quickly, so a bare simmer rather than a rolling boil keeps it from drying and flaking apart.
- Do not actually boil itBring the water up, then drop it to a bare shiver — 170–180F, with only occasional bubbles. Halibut at a full boil loses moisture fast and the flakes separate before the centre is done, which defeats the instruction to lift it out whole.
- TimingNo time is given. Reckon roughly 10 minutes per inch of thickness at a simmer, so 20–30 minutes for a 2–3 inch cut. It is done when the flesh is opaque to the bone; standard food-safety guidance for fish is 145F at the thickest point, though many cooks pull halibut earlier, around 130–135F, for a moister result.
- "2 spoonfuls"Ambiguous in the original — period books use "spoonful" for both tea and table spoons. Two tablespoons of lemon juice suits a cut this size; less will do nothing noticeable.
- No fish kettleA fish-kettle is a long lidded pan with a perforated lifting rack. A deep roasting pan works, or wrap the cut loosely in cheesecloth leaving long ends, which gives you handles to lift it out unbroken.
- Cold water startStarting cold and heating the fish with the water lets the outside and centre cook at similar rates. Lightly salt the water as well — about a tablespoon per quart — or the flesh tastes washed out.
- Drawn butterNot clarified butter in this context. Nineteenth-century drawn butter is a butter-and-flour sauce thinned with water or fish broth, closer to a thin white sauce. Cream sauce with chopped hard-boiled egg stirred in, as suggested at the end, is the richer option.
- YieldA 2–3 inch cut across the fish will weigh anywhere from about 2 lb to several pounds depending on the size of the fish, so serves four to six or more. Leftovers are good cold, flaked into salad, but reheating poached halibut rarely improves it.