Steamed Fish
Wash and wipe a thick piece of fish-if cod, several pounds from the middle or tail end.
Any firm-fleshed, thick variety can be used.
Drain, sprinkle with salt, lay on a pan or any suitable flat dish and place in the steamer.
From five to ten minutes cooking per pound will be needed according to the thickness of the fish.
When done transfer carefully to a platter.
Garnish with lemon quarters or slices and serve with a butter, egg, parsley or other sauce according to the variety of fish cooked.
A method more than a recipe, and it holds up: steaming is still the gentlest way to cook a thick cut of firm white fish. A few points of translation.
- The hinge: judge by thickness, not weightThe old rule of five to ten minutes per pound is unreliable because a two-pound piece four inches thick cooks far longer than a two-pound thin fillet. Reckon roughly 10 minutes per inch of thickness at the thickest point over full steam, and start checking early.
- How to tell it is doneThe flesh should just separate into flakes at the thickest part and look opaque throughout. Pulled at around 130-140F internal it stays moister, though official guidance is 145F; past that cod in particular turns dry and cottony.
- "A thick piece from the middle or tail end"This means a bone-in steak or a whole loin section, not a thin fillet. Cod loin, haddock, halibut, monkfish, hake and pollock all suit the method. Delicate flatfish and oily fish such as mackerel are often thought to suit broiling better, though that is a matter of preference.
- The steamerPeriod steamers were typically a perforated pan or insert set over a pot of boiling water. A bamboo steamer, a folding basket in a lidded pot, or a rack over an inch of simmering water all work. The flat dish underneath catches the juices, which are worth saving for the sauce.
- SaltingSprinkling with salt some minutes before cooking is doing more than seasoning: it firms the surface protein and helps the fish hold together. Give it 15-20 minutes if you have them, then blot away any drawn moisture.
- The sauces named"Butter sauce" is the plain flour-and-butter white sauce of the period, not melted butter. "Egg sauce" is that same sauce with chopped hard-boiled egg stirred in, and parsley sauce likewise with chopped parsley. Egg sauce was a common accompaniment to cod, and parsley sauce often went with haddock.
- YieldAllow about 6-8 oz of raw bone-in fish or 5-6 oz boneless per person. A two-pound centre cut serves four.
Steaming fish is economical: it needs no fat, no oven and very little fuel, since the same kettle of boiling water can be doing other work underneath. Cod was the obvious candidate in American and British kitchens of the period, cheap, plentiful and sold in thick bone-in cuts by the pound, with the middle cut priced above the tail. The convention of pairing white fish with egg sauce is generally traced to the English boiled-cod tradition, where the sauce supplied the richness that a lean, water-cooked fish lacked. What the entry really records is a cook's habit of thinking in terms of method rather than recipe: one technique, any firm-fleshed fish the market happened to be selling cheaply, and a sauce chosen to suit.