Boiled Fish
2 tablespoons chopped onion 2 tablespoons chopped carrot 1 sprig parsley 2 quarts water 1 tablespoon salt bay leaf and clove cup vinegar Wash and wipe fish. Cover with boiling water and add remaining ingredients; bring quickly to the boiling point, and keep just below the boiling point until fish separates slightly in flakes - about thirty minutes.
A fish kettle is the most convenient receptacle for cooking fish whole. If one is not available, use a piece of cheese cloth just large enough to cover fish and tie loosely with string.
All other boiled fish may be cooked in the same way as boiled cod.
This is a court bouillon method for poaching a whole fish; the ingredient list assumes a fish of roughly three to four pounds, which the original never states. Two things in it need attention: the vinegar quantity and the thirty minutes.
- The hinge: never let it boil"Just below the boiling point" means the surface barely trembling, somewhere under a true boil; the book gives no temperature. A rolling boil tears the skin, breaks the flakes apart and squeezes out moisture, which is exactly what the whole cheesecloth-and-kettle apparatus exists to prevent.
- The vinegar measure is incompleteThe printed line reads "cup vinegar" with the fraction missing; how it was lost is not recoverable from the page. Rather than guessing upward, start at about 2 tablespoons for 2 quarts of water. The acid helps firm the flesh.
- Thirty minutes is for a whole fish, not filletsThe recipe gives no weight, but a trussed whole cod or haddock of a few pounds will take roughly that long at a bare simmer. Fillets and steaks are done in 6-10 minutes. Modern cooks often pull fish at 130-140F at the thickest point, next to the backbone, though USDA guidance is 145F; either comes before the flesh visibly flakes.
- A fish kettle, and what to use insteadA fish kettle is a long lidded pan with a perforated rack that lifts the fish out intact. A large roasting pan set over two burners works, as does a deep skillet for smaller fish; the cheesecloth sling in the recipe is the real solution, since the ends give you something to lift by.
- Start with boiling waterThe instruction to cover with boiling water and "bring quickly to the boiling point" then drop the heat is deliberate. Fish begun in cold water sheds albumin into the liquid and cooks unevenly.
- SaltA tablespoon of salt to two quarts is a light brine and is correct for the volume, not a seasoning error. It will not make the fish salty in half an hour.
- Don't waste the liquidStrained, the poaching broth makes a base for the egg or drawn butter sauce commonly served with boiled fish of this kind. Reduce it slightly before using.
- YieldThe recipe gives no fish size and no yield; a whole fish of a few pounds would serve four to six as a main course.
Boiled fish of this kind is a court bouillon in plain English dress: aromatic vegetables, a bay leaf and clove, and acid in a large volume of barely simmering water. Cod was a staple fish in New England cookery of this period, which is why the closing line makes cod the standard and everything else a variation. Walter Lowney's company published its cook books to promote its chocolate and cocoa, but the volumes were built as complete household manuals, so a plain fish course sits alongside the confectionery. The instruction to keep the pot below boiling is a point other writers of the moment, Fannie Farmer among them, were also making -- that "boiled" fish and meat should not actually boil, the title having outlived the method it described.