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One Bay-leaf
One tablespoonful of Basil and Thyme mixed.
A bunch of Parsley.
Chop up the shalots and carrot, put them in a stewpan with the butter and parsley; let this get hot, add the stock, cloves, herbs and seasoning; let all this simmer for one hour. Clean and wash the trout, tie round with broad tapes to prevent it breaking. Put the trout into a stewpan, strain the stock over it, add three glasses of port wine; let it simmer gently till the fish is cooked; it will take about half an hour. Take off the tapes carefully so as not to break the fish, reduce the stock it was cooked in, and pour over it. Hand a quartered lemon round with this dish,
This is a whole trout braised in a port-spiked vegetable stock, in the late-Victorian style where the cooking liquid becomes the sauce. The page as printed has lost the head of its ingredient list, so several quantities have to be judged rather than read.
- The missing quantitiesOnly the mixed herbs, the bunch of parsley and the bay-leaf of the title survive from the head of the list; the port is named in the method, but the shallots, carrot, butter, stock and cloves are given no amounts at all. For a fish of 1.5-2 lb, two shallots, one carrot, an ounce of butter, three or four cloves and enough stock to half-cover work in the spirit of the method.
- Three glasses of portA Victorian wine glass ran roughly 2 to 2.5 fl oz, so three glasses is about 6 to 7.5 fl oz rather than three modern wine pours. Anything much more will dominate the fish.
- The half hour is too longThis is the one instruction to overrule. A whole trout of ordinary size is done in 8-12 minutes at a bare simmer, when the flesh parts from the backbone at the thickest point; thirty minutes leaves it dry and cotton-textured. The stated time would only suit a considerably larger fish.
- TapesBroad tape was standard kitchen kit for holding a fish together in liquid. Butcher's twine at two or three points, or wrapping the fish loosely in muslin with the ends used as lifting handles, does the same job and makes it easier to lift out whole.
- The hour of simmering firstThe stock is simmered with vegetables and herbs for an hour before the fish goes in, and then strained. Do not skip this or cook the fish alongside the vegetables; the point is a clear, well-flavoured liquid that will reduce to a glossy sauce.
- Reducing the sauceAfter the fish comes out, boil the liquid down hard until it coats a spoon, then taste for salt. A knob of cold butter whisked in off the heat at the end gives the shine that the original assumes from long reduction alone.
- YieldOne trout of this size serves two as a main course, or four as a fish course in a longer menu.
Trout stewed in red or fortified wine belongs to a long European tradition of cooking freshwater fish in a wine court-bouillon. The structure here is characteristic professional practice of the period: an aromatic stock built separately, strained, used as the poaching liquid, then reduced into its own sauce, so nothing is wasted. Lemon quarters handed round were a common finish for dressed fish, and the tapes are a reminder that these dishes were meant to reach the table whole and unbroken.