Home › Cookery › German Fish Stew
German Fish Stew
Put the fish in kettle to boil. Stew together in a saucepan one onion chopped fine and a wine-glass of sweet oil; when well done, pour them in with the fish. Then mix yolks of three eggs, juice of two lemons strained, one tablespoonful sifted flour. Beat these well together, and pour upon the fish when nearly done. Then add ginger, pepper, and salt to taste; stew three or four minutes, after mixing all the ingredients. Oysters may be cooked by the same receipt only substituting one quart oysters for the fish.--Mrs. A.D.
A fish poached in its own broth and finished with an egg-and-lemon liaison. The original assumes you know how much water to use and how gently to treat eggs; both need spelling out.
- The hinge: do not let it boilOnce the yolks go in, the liquid must stay below a simmer — around 175F. At a boil the yolks scramble and the sauce breaks into curds and thin broth. Draw the pan half off the heat before adding the egg mixture, and temper it first with a ladle of hot broth stirred in slowly.
- Wine-glassA wine-glass is generally reckoned at about 2 fluid ounces, or 1/4 cup, in cookbooks of this period; the book does not define it. That is a generous amount of oil for one onion — the oil enriches the broth as much as it cooks the onion.
- Sweet oilOlive oil, commonly sold under that name in the nineteenth century, 'sweet' indicating an edible, unrancid oil. Use a mild one rather than a peppery new-harvest oil.
- "Put the fish in kettle to boil"Take about 2 to 3 lb of firm white fish — cod, haddock, rockfish, striped bass — in thick pieces or steaks. Cover barely with lightly salted water and hold it at a bare simmer, not a boil; 8 to 10 minutes for inch-thick pieces. The cooking water becomes the sauce, so keep it shallow and concentrated.
- GingerGround dried ginger. A quarter teaspoon is plenty against two lemons; more and it dominates.
- The flourOne tablespoon whisked raw into the yolks and lemon juice is insurance against curdling rather than a thickener. Whisk until no lumps remain before it meets the hot broth.
- The oyster versionA quart of shucked oysters needs about two minutes in their own liquor plus a little water — they are done the moment the edges ruffle. The recipe's "stew three or four minutes" after combining will already carry them past that point, so add the egg mixture as soon as they curl and pull the pan.
- YieldServes four to six, with rice or plain boiled potatoes to take the sauce. It does not reheat — the liaison separates.
Egg-and-lemon thickening is one of the oldest sauce techniques in European cookery, running from Byzantine and Greek kitchens onward. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879) was assembled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by some 250 housekeepers — the title page credits ladies of Virginia and her sister states — and "Mrs. A.D." is one of the many initialed contributors whose kitchens supplied it. A stew that finished a modest amount of fish with oil, lemon and eggs suited a Southern larder well. The casual note that oysters may be substituted is the most Virginian thing on the page "