Sea-Bream, Baked
INGREDIENTS.-1 bream; seasoning to taste, of salt, pepper and cayenne; lb. of butter.
Well wash the bream, but do not remove the scales, and wipe away all moisture with THE SEA-BREAM. a nice dry cloth. Season it inside and out with salt, pepper and cayenne, and lay it SEA PIE. in a baking-dish. Place the butter in small pieces upon the fish, and bake for rather more than 1/2 an hour. To stuff this fish before baking, will be found a great improvement.
TIME. Rather more than hour.
SEASONABLE in summer.
Note. This fish may be broiled over a nice clear fire, and served with a good brown gravy or white sauce, or it may be stewed in wine.
A whole baked fish with almost nothing done to it — the method stands or falls on the freshness of the bream and on leaving the scales in place while it cooks.
- Leaving the scales onBaking the fish in its scales protects the flesh and keeps the skin from splitting, and the whole jacket lifts away with the skin once cooked. Gut the fish and trim the fins, but resist the urge to scale it unless you intend to eat the skin.
- The butter quantityThe amount of butter has dropped out of the text and only "lb." survives. For a bream of 2–3 lb, 2 to 3 oz (55–85 g) dotted over the top is ample; a full pound would be far more than the dish needs.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given because the book assumes a coal range. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for a whole fish of this size, which suits the "rather more than half an hour" stated.
- Judging donenessThirty-five minutes suits a bream around 2½ lb. Test at the thickest part behind the head: the flesh should part from the backbone cleanly and read 145°F (63°C). A larger fish wants longer, a pair of small ones considerably less.
- CayenneThe recipe leaves the seasoning to taste: a pinch inside the cavity and a dusting outside. It is there to lift the sweetness of the flesh, not to make the dish hot.
- The stuffingThe recipe specifies nothing. A typical forcemeat of the period was breadcrumbs, chopped suet or butter, parsley, lemon peel and egg to bind. Pack it loosely into the cavity and add ten minutes to the baking time.
- YieldA 2½ lb bream serves three or four as a main course. Serve with the buttery pan juices spooned over, and a wedge of lemon.
Sea bream was a cheap, plentiful summer fish on British coasts in the nineteenth century, which is why the entry marks it "seasonable in summer" and why the treatment is so plain — salt, pepper, butter and the oven. The black bream and red bream landed around the south and west of England were sold as everyday fish rather than luxury ones. The closing note, offering the same fish broiled with brown gravy or stewed in wine, is characteristic of the book's method: one set of ingredients, several routes to the table, so a cook could match the dish to whatever else the meal required.