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Halibut with Anchovy Sauce
Four tablespoons of butter, four tablespoons of flour, one-eighth teaspoon of pepper, one-half teaspoon of salt, two hard-boiled eggs chopped, two cups of cream, two drops of tabasco, one teaspoon of anchovy essence, one and one-half cups of cold cooked halibut, flaked. Mix ingredients in order given and cook ten minutes. Serve with brown bread spread with cheese and chopped olives.
This is a creamed fish for the chafing dish or a small saucepan, built on leftover halibut. The instruction to "mix ingredients in order given" hides the actual method, which is the one thing worth getting right.
- Build it as a sauce, not a mixtureMelt the butter, stir in the flour and cook the roux a minute or two, then add the cream gradually off the heat before returning it to the stove. Dumping everything into a cold pan together gives a lumpy, floury result.
- Add the fish and eggs lastThe ten minutes of cooking belongs to the sauce. Fold in the flaked halibut and chopped egg in the final two or three minutes, just long enough to heat through, or the flakes break down into paste.
- Anchovy essenceA thin, salty anchovy extract sold bottled at the time, Burgess's being among the well-known brands. Anchovy paste from a tube is the nearest thing on a modern shelf; a teaspoon of it, or two fillets mashed to a puree, will do.
- SaltAnchovy essence and the olives on the toast are both salty. Hold back the half teaspoon of salt until the sauce is made and the anchovy is in, then taste.
- CreamHousehold cream of this period was generally thinner than today's heavy cream, closer to light cream. Two cups of modern heavy cream with four tablespoons of flour will set very stiff; light cream, or whole milk with a little cream, gives the pourable consistency intended.
- Cold cooked halibutA leftover-dish by design. Rather less than a pound of raw fish, poached and cooled, will give the cup and a half of flakes. Any firm white fish works, and Pacific halibut is the sounder buy where Atlantic stocks are still under pressure.
- Brown breadIn an American book of this date this may well mean the steamed, molasses-sweetened Boston brown bread rather than plain wholemeal, though the recipe does not say. Toast it, spread with a soft cheese and chopped green olives, and serve alongside rather than under the fish.
- YieldEnough for four as a light lunch or supper, two or three if it is the only hot dish.
Creamed leftover fish was a fixture of the American chafing dish, which had a long vogue from the 1890s into the 1920s as a way of producing a hot dish at the table without a cook. Anchovy essence is the English inheritance in it: a bottled fish extract often linked with the tradition that produced Worcestershire sauce, kept in the store cupboard to give depth to bland white fish and pale sauces, and used here alongside two drops of Tabasco. The Good Housekeeping kitchens promoted exactly this sort of economy — a cup and a half of yesterday's halibut, a roux, and something sharp from a bottle turned into a company dish — and the accompanying brown bread with cheese and olives shows the same instinct for making a small amount of fish stretch to a full plate.<br><br>The chopped hard-boiled egg is a period signature. It appears in creamed cod, creamed salmon and creamed chicken alike, adding bulk and richness.</p>