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Forcemeat for Baked Fish
3 ounces bread crumbs 1 teaspoon savory herbs 8 oysters 2 ounces suet Salt and pepper Dash of mace 6 tablespoons milk Yolks of two eggs Chop the oysters; mix well with the other ingredients and stir over the fire until the mixture thickens; stuff the fish and sew up opening.
A rich Victorian-style oyster stuffing meant for a whole baked fish. The quantities are small — this fills a fish of roughly 3 to 4 pounds.
- Weights to volume3 ounces of bread crumbs is roughly 3/4 cup of dry crumbs, or closer to 1½ to 2 cups of fresh soft crumbs. 2 ounces of suet is about ½ cup finely chopped or grated.
- SuetBeef suet is the hard fat from around the kidneys, sold by butchers or shredded in boxes in Britain. Cold unsalted butter, grated, is a common substitute, though it is softer and melts at a lower temperature.
- "Savory herbs"A period shorthand for a dried mixed-herb blend — thyme, marjoram, parsley, sometimes sage or summer savory. Any dried poultry-seasoning blend fits, or equal parts dried thyme and marjoram.
- MaceThe lacy outer covering of the nutmeg, warmer and less sweet than the nut itself. Ground mace is still sold; a smaller pinch of grated nutmeg stands in.
- The hinge — stir over gentle heatTwo egg yolks and milk will curdle over direct high heat. Use low heat and stir constantly, pulling the pan off as soon as the mixture holds together in a mass. It should thicken, not scramble.
- OystersEight shucked oysters, chopped, with their liquor. They release water into the mixture, so add the milk gradually — you may not need all six tablespoons if the oysters are large and juicy.
- Sewing the fishCotton butcher's twine and a trussing needle; remove the thread before serving. Skewers laced with twine, or simply tying the fish in two or three places, work as well.
- CookingBecause the stuffing is already set and the oysters lightly cooked, judge doneness by the fish itself. The recipe specifies no oven temperature; a common modern rule of thumb is about 10 minutes per inch of thickness at the thickest point.
Forcemeat — generally traced to the French farce, with the English form often said to reflect a reading of it as meat "forced" into something — was one of the workhorse preparations of the nineteenth-century kitchen, a bound mixture of crumbs, fat, egg and flavourings used to stuff birds, fish and joints or rolled into balls and poached alongside them. The oyster version reflects an era when oysters were abundant and cheap on both American coasts and turned up in stuffings, sauces and soups as a matter of course rather than as luxury.