Baked Shad
Clean and split a three-pound shad, placing it skin side down in a baking pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper; spread with butter and thin slices of bacon and bake twenty-five or thirty minutes in a hot oven. Garnish with parsley and slices of lemon.
A plain baked split fish, and the method still works — the only real decisions are oven heat and how you handle the bones.
- "A hot oven"Read this as 425–450F. A split three-pound shad is thin enough that it wants fast, dry heat; a moderate oven in the same time leaves the flesh slack and the bacon flabby.
- Buying shadAmerican shad is seasonal (spring runs) and no longer sold everywhere, and some fisheries are closed or restricted. A boned shad fillet, bluefish, mackerel or a split trout of similar weight bakes the same way.
- Split, not filleted"Split" here means butterflied down the back and opened flat, skin side down in the pan — not two separate fillets. Shad has a notorious lattice of floating intercostal bones; either buy it professionally boned or plan on picking at the table.
- The bacon is the bastingShad is oily but the belly flesh still dries at the edges. Lay the slices to overlap slightly across the thickest part, and if they are thick-cut, start them in a dry pan for a minute so they render rather than steaming on top of the fish.
- Doneness over clockTwenty-five to thirty minutes suits a whole split three-pounder. Thinner boned fillets are done in 15–18 minutes — the flesh should just separate from the bone line and read about 130–135F at the thickest point.
- Salt aheadSeason 15–20 minutes before it goes in the oven rather than at the moment of baking. The surface dries slightly and browns better under the butter.
- RoeIf the fish comes with roe, it is generally better cooked separately and gently; the sacs can burst and firm up at this heat.
- YieldA three-pound whole shad serves three, perhaps four with a substantial side. Allow more if the bones are still in.
Shad is the fish that made spring dinners on the American Atlantic coast, running up the Delaware, Hudson, Susquehanna and Connecticut rivers in such numbers that shad planking and shad-and-roe suppers became regional fixtures. Its reputation was double-edged: rich, sweet flesh set in a maze of fine bones, which is why nineteenth- and early twentieth-century books often turn to long slow baking meant to soften the bones, or to elaborate boning by the fishmonger. This recipe takes the brisk route instead u2014 cleaned and split, buttered, larded with bacon and pushed through a hot oven. The parsley and lemon garnish is a finish often seen in the period for baked fish sent whole to the table.