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Matelote of Codfish
Wash and rinse a medium-sized cod; wipe until dry and remove the bones. Fill the fish with a dressing made of 1/2 pint of oysters, a small pint of bread crumbs, 2 teaspoonfuls of butter, 1/2 an onion, 1 egg, 1/2 tablespoonful of chopped parsley, and a little pepper. Lay some slices of salt pork on the grating of your baking-pan; place the fish on these, and lay more slices on top of the fish. Boil the fish-bones in a pint of water and pour into the bottom of potatoes and put them in a saucepan with 2 quarts of cold water. Add 1/2 tablespoonful of salt, 4 sprigs of parsley, and 1 clove stuck in an onion. Boil twenty-five minutes, then add the pieces of codfish. Cook slowly for ten minutes. Take the fish out and place it on a hot platter, removing all pieces of skin and bone. Drain the potatoes, then place them around the fish. Put 1 heaping tablespoonful of butter and 1 of flour into a small saucepan and stir for three minutes, but do not let it brown. Slowly pour into the saucepan 1 pint of the strained water in which the fish was cooked. Season with 1/2 saltspoonful of pepper, and let it simmer for eight minutes. Remove from the fire and place in the pan. Bake for an hour, basting occasionally with the gravy and the butter. Have a bouquet of herbs in one corner of your baking-pan. Pour the gravy around the fish and serve immediately.
Two techniques are at work here — a whole cod stuffed with oyster dressing and barded with salt pork, and a separate poached cod with potatoes and a butter-flour sauce. Read the method through before starting and decide which you are cooking.
- Oven heatNo temperature or oven description is given anywhere in the text. For a stuffed whole fish under salt pork, around 350F is a reasonable choice. Higher and the pork scorches before the stuffing heats through.
- The hour of baking is too longThe recipe specifies only a "medium-sized" cod. If it is in the 3 to 4 lb range, the thickest flesh will read 145F in roughly 35 to 45 minutes at 350F; a larger fish will take longer. Either way an hour risks dry, cottony fish. Check early and go by the thermometer, not the clock.
- Oysters in the dressingA half pint is about a cup, roughly 8 to 12 shucked oysters with their liquor. They need no pre-cooking; they will finish in the stuffing. Drain off most of the liquor or the bread crumbs turn to paste.
- "A small pint of bread crumbs"Take it as a scant 2 cups of soft, torn crumbs from a day-old loaf, not dried packaged crumbs, which absorb far more liquid and will set hard.
- SaltspoonfulA quarter teaspoon. The salt pork and the oyster liquor both carry salt, so season the sauce at the end rather than the start.
- Salt pork and the gratingThe "grating" is a rack set in the roasting pan. The pork slices above and below act as a self-basting layer. Modern salt pork is often very salty — a brief blanch in simmering water for two minutes takes the edge off.
- Fish stockBones and head simmered in a pint of water need only about 20 minutes; fish stock is generally held to gain little and to risk bitterness with longer boiling, unlike meat stock.
- The sauceButter and flour cooked three minutes without colour is a white roux; add the strained stock gradually and off the heat first to avoid lumps. Eight minutes of simmering is enough to cook out the raw flour taste.
- Bouquet of herbsParsley stalks, thyme and a bay leaf tied with string. Tuck it in the pan liquid, not against the fish, and remove before serving.
- YieldIf the cod is 3 to 4 lb, a stuffed fish of this kind will serve six to eight.