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Boiled Sheep's-Head or Rock
Lay the fish in a fish boiler, in a cloth, to prevent breaking. Throw into the water a handful parsley, and when the fish is done, lay some sprigs on it in the dish.--Mrs. D.
A two-line recipe that assumes you already know how to poach a whole fish. The gaps worth filling are the cooking liquid, the doneness point, and what these two fish actually are.
- The fish"Sheep's-head" is Archosargus probatocephalus, the black-and-silver-barred porgy of the Chesapeake and the South Atlantic, prized in the 19th century and still caught today. "Rock" is Virginia shorthand for rockfish, the striped bass. Either can be replaced by any firm whole white fish of 3-5 lb.
- Fish boilerA long oval kettle with a perforated lift-out rack, the point of which is that the fish never has to be turned or lifted with a spatula. A roasting pan with a rack, or a large oval Dutch oven, will do; the cloth does the same job of keeping the fish in one piece.
- The clothWrap the fish loosely in cheesecloth or a clean linen towel, leaving long ends to use as handles. This is the whole reason the fish arrives at the table intact.
- Season the waterThe original says only "the water," but a bare-water poach gives flat fish. Salt it to roughly 1 tablespoon per quart; vinegar and a few peppercorns are a common addition to a fish poach, though this recipe calls for nothing but parsley.
- Do not actually boilDespite the title, a rolling boil shreds the flesh and squeezes out moisture. Bring the water up, then hold it at a bare shiver, around 175-180F, with the fish covered by an inch of liquid.
- DonenessReckon about 8-10 minutes per inch of thickness at the shoulder, or until the flesh at the backbone separates cleanly from it; a 4 lb whole fish is usually done in 25-30 minutes. Poached fish is often pulled at 130-135F, though the standard food-safety recommendation for fish is 145F.
- ServingThe parsley sprigs are the garnish, but boiled fish was usually sent to table with a sauce: egg sauce, drawn butter or anchovy butter are the usual period accompaniments. A 4 lb whole fish serves four to six.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1878; there are later printings), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by Virginia housewives, is full of these telegraphic entries signed with an initial: the contributor assumed her reader had boiled a fish before and needed only the trick worth passing on, which here is the cloth. Boiled rock and sheepshead were tidewater staples, both fish taken in quantity from the Chesapeake and the James, and a whole poached fish laid on a long platter was a standard centerpiece for a company dinner. Sheepshead in particular had a reputation in the period as one of the finest table fish on the Atlantic coast, its diet of crabs and shellfish credited with the sweetness of the flesh; the fish became much scarcer in the northern part of its old range during the 20th century, for reasons that are not fully settled, which is one reason the name is far less familiar to cooks now than it was to Mrs. D.