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Au Gratin
I large flounder 2 chopped shallots 2 heaping tablespoonfuls (2 ozs.) butter 1 tablespoonful chopped parsley ¼ pint (1/2 cup) white wine 1/2 cupful bread crumbs Salt and pepper Salt and pepper both sides Clean and skin the fish. of the flounder, then lay it in a fireproof au gratin dish, sprinkle in the shallots and the parsley; add the butter divided into small pieces, the wine, and the layer of bread crumbs.
Let it cook in the oven for about half an hour.
A whole flat fish baked under wine, butter and crumbs — the plainest kind of gratin, with no sauce and no cheese. The typesetting in this edition has scrambled the order of the sentences, and one measurement is mangled.
- Reading the instructionsThe wine measure was checked against the printed page and reads a quarter pint, about half a cup, as our text now gives. The instructions themselves run out of order: clean and skin the fish, salt and pepper both sides, then lay it in the dish.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given at all. Bake at 375F; a moderate oven of 350F will work but the crumbs brown less.
- TimingHalf an hour suits a thick whole flounder of about 2 lb. Fillets or a small fish will be done in 12 to 18 minutes — test at the backbone, where the flesh should lift away cleanly and look opaque. Overbaked flatfish turns cottony and cannot be recovered.
- The au gratin dishAn oval, shallow, glazed earthenware dish, wide enough to hold the fish flat and no deeper than it needs to be. Depth is the enemy here: the wine should reduce around the fish, not poach it. Any shallow ceramic or metal baking dish will do.
- Crumbs and butterUse dry crumbs, not fresh -- fresh ones absorb the wine and go to paste. The recipe layers the butter first and the crumbs last; dotting some butter over the crumbs instead will help the top brown rather than steam.
- ShallotsRaw shallot baked for under half an hour stays sharp. Soften the chopped shallot in a little of the butter first if you want it sweet, and reserve most of the parsley to scatter after baking.
- SkinningSkin the dark side only, and leave the white skin on to hold the fish together in the dish. Ask the fishmonger to do it if you would rather.
- YieldOne large flounder serves two generously, or four as a first course. Spoon the buttery wine from the dish over each portion; there is no other sauce.
This is the classic French treatment the English-speaking cookbooks of the early 1900s called sole au gratin, adapted to whatever flatfish the market offered — flounder in America, plaice or dab in Britain. Gratin comes from the French gratter, to scrape, and originally described the browned crust scraped from the pan rather than any particular dish; the shallow oval vessel took its name from the technique, not the other way round. The appeal was practical: the fish is seasoned, dressed and cooked in the vessel it comes to table in, which suited kitchens with limited help and small ranges.