Codfish Souffle
1/2 pound of salt cod; 2 eggs; 1 pint of mashed potatoes; 1 saltspoonful of pepper.
Pick the fish apart and wash it well in cold water; then cover with boiling water and let stand for thirty minutes; drain, and press dry. Beat the mashed potato until very light, stir in the fish, add the pepper, then the yolks of the eggs, and lastly, fold in the whites of the eggs, which have been well beaten. Put into a baking-dish, and bake in a hot oven until a golden brown.
This souffle is good to take the place of codfish balls.
A late-Victorian way of stretching salt cod into a light supper dish, and one of the few soufflés that forgives a cook entirely — potato holds it up long after the egg white has done its work.
- The salt cod itselfModern salt cod is usually sold as thick, bone-dry planks and is far saltier than the loose \"picked\" fish assumed here. A thirty-minute steep in boiling water will not desalt a heavy piece; taste a shred after soaking and repeat with fresh water if it is still harsh. Very thick loin pieces are better soaked cold overnight in the refrigerator, water changed two or three times.
- SaltspoonfulA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. That is the pepper measure; note that no salt at all is added, and none should be, since the fish carries it.
- A pint of mashed potatoTwo cups by volume, roughly a pound of potatoes before cooking. Mash them dry and plain — no cream, no butter beyond a little — or the mixture will be too loose to rise.
- Hot ovenRead that as somewhere around 400 to 425F. Roughly 25 to 30 minutes in a buttered dish of about a quart and a half will give the golden top the recipe asks for; a wide shallow dish browns faster than a deep one.
- Folding the whitesBeat them to soft, not stiff, peaks and fold in three additions. Stiff whites break into lumps against a stodgy potato base and the soufflé stays flat.
- Press dry means press dryWring the soaked fish in a clean towel. Wet fish is the usual reason this collapses into a damp pudding rather than puffing.
- YieldServes four as a light main course with a green vegetable, or six as a first course. It falls within minutes of leaving the oven, so carry it straight to the table.
Salt cod was the everyday fish of the American and British household long after fresh fish became widely available, cheap and shelf-stable in a way nothing else was, and nineteenth-century cookbooks carry dozens of ways to disguise it. Codfish balls \bound with egg and fried from much the same fish and potato mixture \bwere a fixture of the New England breakfast table, which is why this entry ends by positioning itself against them: the souffl\babaked alternative to a dish of fried croquettes. The word souffl\bwas fashionable in English-language cookery by this period and was applied generously, often to anything lightened with beaten egg white rather than to the classic b\bchamel-based construction.