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For Fillets of Sole or Whiting
Ingredients.
Coral from a Lobster or half an ounce of Spawn.
One ounce of Butter.
One ounce of Flour.
Half a pint of Fish Stock.
A teaspoonful of Lemon-juice.
Half a gill of Cream.
The book gives quantities only; the method is the standard lobster-coral butter sauce of the period, and the proportions tell you exactly how it goes together. Everything hinges on the coral being pounded into the butter before it meets heat.
- Coral and spawnThe "coral" is the roe of a hen lobster, dark greenish-black when raw and scarlet once cooked; period writers generally used "spawn" for the same thing, and half an ounce is roughly a tablespoon. Pound it smooth with the butter and pass it through a sieve, or the sauce will be gritty and speckled rather than an even pink.
- A gillHalf a gill is about 2 1/2 fl oz, roughly 70 ml or a generous quarter cup. A full gill is 5 fl oz, about 142 ml.
- ProportionsOne ounce each of butter and flour to half a pint (a US cup and a bit, about 285 ml) of stock gives a coating-consistency velouté, further loosened at the end by the cream. If it tightens too far, loosen with more stock rather than more cream.
- Fish stockThe book says only "fish stock"; a light stock from the trimmings of the fish being served is the obvious choice, and it is best not cooked at length, as fish bones give a heavy, faintly bitter stock with long simmering. A good bottled fumet works, but check the salt before seasoning.
- Cooking the rouxKeep it pale. This is a white sauce for white fish, so cook the flour and butter only a minute or two until it smells biscuity, then add the stock off the boil.
- Lemon juice and cream lastBoth go in at the end, off direct heat. A flour-thickened sauce takes acid better than a plain cream one, but there is nothing to gain by boiling it afterwards, and hard boiling once the coral is in dulls the colour.
- YieldAround a pint of finished sauce once the stock and cream are combined, enough for four fillets of sole or a pair of good whiting.
Coral sauce belongs to the late Victorian and Edwardian fish course, where a plain poached or folded fillet of sole was expected to arrive under something pink, glossy and expensive-looking. The colour is the point, which is why the same coral turns up pounded into butter for sauce cardinal and sauce homard. The book's terseness here is characteristic of the period: a roux, a fish stock and a liaison of cream needed no explaining, so only the proportions were set down.