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Soles, with Cream Sauce
INGREDIENTS for dish for 4 or 5 persons.- 2 soles: salt, cayenne and pounded mace to taste ; the juice of 1/24 lemon, salt and water, 1/2 pint of cream. AVERAGE COST, 2s. 6d.
Skin, wash and fillet the soles, and divide each fillet in 2 pieces; lay them in cold salt and water, which bring gradually to a boil. When the water boils, take out the fish, lay it in a delicately clean stewpan, and cover with the cream. Add the seasoning, simmer very gently for 10 minutes, and, just before serving, put in the lemon-juice. The fillets may be rolled, and secured by means of a skewer; but this is not so economical a way of dressing them, as double the quantity of cream is required.
TIME.-10 minutes in the cream.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Note. This will be found a most delicate and delicious dish.
Soufflé, To Make. - INGREDIENTS for dish for 4 persons. -3 heaped tablespoonfuls of potato-flour, rice-flour, arrowroot, or tapioca, 1 pint of milk, 5 eggs, a piece of butter the size of a walnut, sifted sugar to taste, saltspoonful of salt, flavouring.
AVERAGE COST, 10d.
Mix the potato-flour, or whichever one of the above ingredients is used, with a little of the milk; put it into a saucepan, with the remainder of the milk, the butter, salt and sufficient pounded sugar to sweeten the whole nicely. Stir these ingredients over the fire until the mixture thickens; then take it off the fire, and let it cool a little. Separate the whites from the yolks of the eggs, beat the latter, and stir them into the soufflé batter. Now whisk the whites of the eggs to the firmest possible froth, for on this depends the SOUPS, DIRECTIONS FOR. excellence of the dish; stir them to the other ingredients, and add a few drops of essence of any flavouring that may be preferred, such as vanilla, lemon, orange, ginger, &c. &c. Pour the batter into a soufflé-dish, put it immediately into the oven, and bake for about 1/2 hour; then take it out, put the dish into another more ornamental one, such as is made for the purpose; hold a salamander or hot shovel over the soufflé, strew it with sugar, and send it instantly to table. The secret of making a soufflé well is to have the eggs well whisked, but particularly the whites, the oven not too hot, and to send it to table the moment it comes from the oven.
If the soufflé be ever so well made, and it is allowed to stand before being sent to table, its appearance and goodness will be entirely spoiled. Soufflés may be flavoured in various ways, but must be named accordingly. Vanilla is one of the most delicate and the nicest flavourings that can be used for this dish.
SOUFFLÉ-PAN.
Time.-About 1/2 hour in the oven 2 or 3 minutes to hold the salamander over.
SEASONABLE at any time.
A plain poached-then-creamed sole that depends almost entirely on restraint: thin fillets and a pan of cream will both spoil if pushed. Two soles yield eight small pieces, enough for four as a light main course with bread or plain potatoes.
- The hinge: never let the cream boilCream at a rolling boil will break and turn grainy around the fish. Keep it at the barest tremble, with the pan half off the heat if necessary, and take the fillets out the moment they turn opaque.
- Ten minutes is too longSole fillets a quarter of an inch thick, already firmed in the salt water, are done in three to four minutes in hot cream. The full ten will leave them cottony and shrunken.
- Starting in cold waterBringing the fillets up from cold salted water sets the surface protein gently and keeps the flesh from curling. Lift them out as soon as the water shows the first real bubbles, not after; this stage is a firming, not a cooking.
- Half a pint of creamAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, about 1¼ US cups. Use double or heavy cream at 36 per cent fat or above; single cream and half-and-half will split at simmering heat.
- Pounded maceMace is the lacy outer covering of the nutmeg, sold today as blades or ready-ground. A generous pinch is enough for this quantity; it is warmer and less sweet than nutmeg and is the seasoning that makes the dish taste of its period.
- Lemon juice at the endAcid added to hot cream early on will curdle it. Stir the juice in off the heat, immediately before the fish goes to the table. The printed quantity ('the juice of 1/24 lemon') is garbled; a quarter to half a lemon suits 10 fl oz of cream.
- Buying the fishDover sole is expensive and increasingly hard to find; lemon sole, witch, dab or plaice all behave the same way here. Ask the fishmonger to skin and fillet, and keep the bones for stock.
- Rolled filletsThe rolled version needs twice the cream simply to cover the deeper shapes, and it also needs longer to cook through. If you roll them, use cocktail sticks rather than skewers and allow six or seven minutes.
Sole poached in cream belongs to the long English habit of treating the fish as something too fine to disguise: Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management, from which this entry descends, repeatedly recommends soles boiled, fried in egg and crumb, or dressed with the plainest of sauces. The costing of 2s. 6d. — against 10d. for the soufflé on the same page — marks it as a comparatively expensive dish for a household book aimed at the middle classes; sole reached inland markets by rail from the south-coast and North Sea fisheries, but it was never a cheap fish, and half a pint of cream on top of it suggests a company dish rather than everyday family food. The note on rolled fillets being less economical is characteristic of the book's whole method: the presentation is offered, the price of it is stated, and the reader is left to decide.