Carp, Baked
INGREDIENTS.-1 carp, forcemeat, bread-crumbs, 1 1/4 oz. of butter, 1/2 pint of stock (see STOCK), 1/2 pint of port wine, 6 anchovies, 2 onions sliced, 1 bay-leaf, a faggot of sweet herbs, flour to thicken, the juice of 1 lemon; cayenne and salt to taste; 1/2 teaspoonful of powdered sugar.
CARROT JAM.
Stuff the carp with a delicate forcemeat, after thoroughly cleansing it, and sew it up, to prevent the stuffing from falling out.
Rub it over with an egg, and sprinkle it with bread-crumbs; lay it in a deep earthen dish, and drop the butter, oiled, over the breadcrumbs. Add the stock, onions, bay-leaf, herbs, wine and anchovies, an THE CARP. bake for 1 hour. Put 1 oz. of butter into a stewpan, melt it, and dredge in sufficient flour to dry it up; put in the strained liquor from the carp, stir frequently, and when it has boiled, add the lemon-juice and seasoning. Serve the carp on a dish garnished with parsley and cut lemon, and the sauce in a boat.
TIME.-1 hour.
SEASONABLE from March to October.
A whole stuffed fish braised in port and stock, with the cooking liquor thickened into a sauce. The method is sound; only the units, the oven setting and the fish itself need translating.
- Oven temperatureNo setting is given, only "bake for 1 hour". A moderate oven, 350F/180C, is right for a whole fish sitting in liquid. A 3 lb carp will be done in 40-50 minutes; check that the thickest part behind the head reaches 145F rather than relying on the hour.
- Imperial pintsMrs Beeton's half pint is 10 fl oz, about 1 1/4 US cups. So roughly 1 1/4 cups stock and 1 1/4 cups port, which together should come partway up the fish, not submerge it.
- A faggot of sweet herbsA small bundle of parsley, thyme and marjoram tied with string, added whole and removed with the other solids when the liquor is strained. Modern shorthand: a bouquet garni.
- ForcemeatThe book assumes a separate veal or fish forcemeat, made from breadcrumbs, suet or butter, chopped herbs, lemon peel and egg to bind. Allow about 8 oz for a 3 lb fish, and pack it loosely so it can swell.
- Sewing upTrussing needle and cotton thread do the job; short lengths of soaked bamboo skewer laced with string work as well. This matters more than it sounds, since the stuffing will otherwise wash out into the braising liquid and cloud the sauce.
- The anchoviesVictorian anchovies were generally salt-packed, and saltier than modern oil-packed fillets. Six tinned fillets, rinsed, give roughly the right savoury weight; add no salt to the sauce until you have tasted it.
- The sauceButter and flour "dredged in sufficient to dry it up" is a roux of about 1 oz each. Strain the liquor before adding it, cook the sauce a few minutes past boiling to lose the raw flour, then finish off the heat with lemon juice, cayenne, salt and the sugar.
- Sourcing the fishFarmed carp is sold live or whole at Eastern European and Chinese markets. It must be well scaled and the dark lateral flesh trimmed; wild river carp can taste muddy, and a long soak in salted water before stuffing helps. Sea bass or a whole grey mullet takes the same treatment.
- YieldA 3 lb stuffed carp serves four as a main course, with the sauce sent to table separately in a sauceboat as directed.
Carp was a pond fish before it was a river fish in Britain: monastic and manor stew ponds kept it alive through winter, and it remained the standard "fast day" and Christmas Eve fish across much of Catholic and Central Europe long after English cooks had drifted toward sea fish. That inheritance shows in the treatment here. The port, anchovy and lemon are doing heavy work, because carp is soft, sweet and can carry a muddy note, and the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English kitchen habitually dressed freshwater fish in rich, wine-dark sauces that would have been recognised as "stewed" rather than baked. Mrs Beeton gives the season as March to October; today the fish is farmed and available year round, and the recipe survives mainly as evidence of how thoroughly a Victorian household expected to season a fish it did not entirely trust.