Broiled Fish
For broiling large fish should be split down the back and head and tail removed; salmon and halibut should be cut into one-inch slices, and smelts and other small fish left whole. Wipe the fish as dry as possible; sprinkle with salt and pepper and if the fish is dry and white brush the flesh side well with olive oil or butter. Put in a well-greased broiler, placing the thickest parts of the fish toward the middle or back of the broiler. Hold over a hot fire until the flesh side is nicely browned; then cook the skin side just long enough to make the skin crisp. Small fish require from ten to fifteen minutes, large fish from fifteen to twenty-five. To remove from the broiler loosen one side first, then the other, and lift carefully with a cake turner. Place on a platter; spread with butter and stand in the oven for a few minutes. Garnish with lemon and serve with Maitre d'Hôtel sauce.
This is coal-grate cooking: the "broiler" is a hinged wire basket held over live fire, not the element in an oven. Translating it means rethinking both the equipment and, more importantly, the timings.
- The broiler is a basketA well-greased hinged wire fish grill, clamped shut over the fish, is what allows the whole thing to be turned in one motion. Under an oven broiler you can skip the basket entirely and simply not turn the fish; on a charcoal grill the basket is still the best tool for anything delicate.
- Cut the times hardTen to fifteen minutes for smelts and up to twenty-five for a split fish belong to an uneven, receding coal fire. Under a modern broiler at full heat, an inch-thick salmon or halibut slice wants roughly 4 to 6 minutes flesh side and a minute or two of skin side; whole smelts want 2 to 3 minutes a side. Fish is done at 145F, when the flesh is just opaque and parts at the thickest point.
- Flesh side firstThis is the hinge of the method. Browning the cut face while the skin still protects the underside keeps the flesh from drying, and the short second pass crisps the skin without overcooking through.
- Thick parts toward the backThe original says to set the thickest parts toward the middle or back of the broiler, without saying why; presumably that was the hotter zone over the fire. Under an overhead element, put the thick end nearest the center of the heat and the tail end toward the cooler edge, or tuck the thin tail under itself.
- Split down the backButterflying a whole fish through the backbone rather than the belly gives a flat, even piece that lies against the wires. A fishmonger can do it if asked; describe what you want -- opened out flat through the backbone, head and tail off -- rather than relying on a single term.
- "Dry and white" fishThe oil or butter brushing is for lean flesh — cod, haddock, flounder, sole. Salmon, mackerel and bluefish carry enough fat of their own and need only salt and pepper.
- The finishing ovenButtering the fish and standing it in the oven a few minutes was a way to melt the butter and hold the platter warm on a coal range. A warm oven around 200F does the same; more than a few minutes and the fish keeps cooking.
- Maitre d'Hotel sauceUsually a compound butter in books of this date: softened butter worked with chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper, then sliced cold onto the hot fish. Some period books do give a cooked lemon-parsley-butter sauce under the same name, so check the book's own sauce entry if it has one.
- YieldReckon on one 6-oz slice per person, or about three-quarters to a pound of whole fish once bone and trim are allowed for; a 2 lb split fish serves two to three.
Broiling over a clear coal fire was the standard treatment for fresh fish in American households well into the era of the gas range, and the hinged wire broiler was a common tool for it — the instruction to loosen one side, then the other, is written for a cook who has handled fish that stick. Mrs. Fryer's book seems to belong to a tradition of cookery manuals in which this sort of general method entry is standard: not one dish but a template covering salmon, halibut, smelts and anything else the market offered. The Maitre d'Hotel butter finish shows how thoroughly French restaurant vocabulary had entered the American home kitchen by then, reduced from a chef's preparation to parsley, lemon and butter mashed together with a fork.