Fish Cake
INGREDIENTS. - The remains of any cold fish, 1 onion, 1 faggot of sweet herbs; salt and pepper to taste, 1 pint of water, equal quantities of bread-crumbs and cold potatoes, 1/2 teaspoonful of parsley, 1 egg, bread-crumbs. AVERAGE COST, exclusive of the cold fish, 6d. Pick the meat from the bones of the fish, which latter put, with the head and fins, into a stewpan with the water; add pepper and salt, the onion and herbs, and stew slowly for gravy about 2 hours; chop the fish fine, and mix it well with bread-crumbs and cold potatoes, adding the parsley and seasoning; make the whole into a cake with the white of an egg, brush it over with the yolk of the egg, cover with breadcrumbs, fry of a light brown; strain the gravy, pour it over, and stew gently for 1/4 of an hour, stirring it carefully once or twice. Serve hot, and garnish with thin slices of lemon and parsley.
TIME.- hour after the gravy is made.
SEASONABLE at any time.
A leftovers dish built around a quick fish stock, and the stock is what makes it worth the trouble. A few of Mrs Beeton's details need translating.
- A faggot of sweet herbsA small bundle tied with string — parsley stalks, thyme and a bay leaf is the standard reading. Remove it before straining, or simply tie the herbs in muslin.
- Quantities are left to the cook"Equal quantities of bread-crumbs and cold potatoes" is proportional to however much fish you have. As a working ratio, use about half the volume of the picked fish in crumbs and the same again in mashed potato; too much filler and the cake tastes of nothing.
- The stock is the pointTwo hours is long for fish bones — modern practice stops at 20 to 30 minutes, after which the bones give bitterness rather than flavour. Simmer heads, fins and bones with the onion, herbs and seasoning for half an hour, then strain and reduce if you want it stronger.
- Avoid oily fish bonesSalmon, mackerel and herring frames make a heavy, rank stock. This works best with cod, haddock, hake, whiting or other white fish.
- One cake, not fishcakesBeeton means a single large cake, shaped and fried whole, then finished in the gravy. It is easier to handle as four or five smaller cakes; chill them for 30 minutes before frying so they hold together.
- Egg white binds, yolk brownsThe white goes into the mixture as the binder, the yolk is brushed on outside so the crumbs colour. Keep them separate rather than beating one egg into everything.
- The final stewA quarter hour in the gravy is fine for a large cake but will soften smaller ones. Give small cakes five to eight minutes, spooning the gravy over rather than stirring, which breaks them up.
- Cost and yieldThe 6d. is mid-Victorian money for the onion, herbs, crumbs and egg; the cold fish is excluded. No yield is given, so it depends entirely on how much fish you have left.
Fish cake in Mrs Beeton belongs to the large section of her book concerned with what to do with what is already in the house — cold joints, cold fowl, cold fish, all reworked into something that could go to table without apology. Leftover flakes and a bare frame were a familiar problem, and the instruction to stew the head and fins for gravy reflects a household economy in which nothing edible or flavour-bearing was thrown out. The dish is notably plainer than the fried, crumbed fishcake of later British cookery: here the cake is served swimming in its own fish gravy, closer to a fricassee than to the fried patty served with sauce that took over in the twentieth century. Lemon and parsley as a garnish appears throughout her fish chapter.