Broiled Fish
Clean, wash, and split, removing backbone and fins along the edge. Very large fish should be cut into slices. Dry on piece of cheesecloth; season with salt and pepper. Cook on well-greased broiler, from 10 to 20 minutes, turning frequently. Remove to hot platter; add melted butter and sprinkle with chopped parsley or celery tops; garnish with slices of lemon and serve.
A method rather than a fixed recipe, written for a hinged wire broiler held over coals or set in a coal-range broiling oven. The one thing to carry over is the drying: a fish surface still damp from washing steams instead of browning and welds itself to the grid.
- "Broiler" means the basket"Broiler" often means the basket -- in this period "broiler" may mean a hinged double-wire grid that clamps the fish so it can be flipped whole, though it can equally mean the rack or broiling compartment of a range. If the fish is to be turned frequently, a hinged fish basket on a hot grill, or a very hot ridged pan, is the closer equivalent to a modern overhead element.
- Split and boned"Split" means butterflied down the back with the backbone lifted out, leaving the fish flat and one thickness throughout. This is what makes a 10-minute cook time plausible for a whole fish.
- Timing, by thicknessThe 10-to-20-minute range covers everything from a split mackerel to thick steaks off a large fish. Judge by thickness rather than clock: the usual modern rule of thumb is roughly 8-10 minutes per inch total, until the flesh at the thickest point turns opaque and parts from the bone. A thin split fish held to the top of that range will be dry.
- Grease both sidesThe recipe's "well-greased broiler" is not optional; lean white fish in particular tears if the grid is dry, and oiling the skin as well helps, though the text does not call for it. Rubbing the wires with a scrap of fat pork is a trick found in some period books.
- Turning frequentlyFrequent turning suits an open fire where the heat is uneven. Over an even modern heat source, two turns is enough and handling the fish less keeps it intact.
- The finishMelted butter poured over off the heat is doing the work of a sauce here; a squeeze from the garnish lemon and the chopped parsley or celery tops complete it. Celery tops are the leafy tops of the stalks, offered here as an alternative to parsley.
- YieldThe recipe specifies neither quantity nor servings. As a modern estimate, one split fish of about 1 to 1.5 lb serves two, or 6-8 oz of trimmed fish per person for steaks or slices.
Broiling was the default treatment for fresh fish in American household books of the early twentieth century, and the instructions read the way they do because many kitchens still had a coal or wood range with a broiling compartment and a hinged wire broiler hanging nearby, though gas ranges were also widespread in the period. Cookbooks of this type tended to give methods rather than named dishes in the fish chapter, on the assumption that the cook bought whatever was fresh at market and needed to know how to handle it, not what to call it. The insistence on drying the fish on cheesecloth reflects the general practice of drying fish before it meets heat, and the split-and-boned preparation described here is the same butterflying still used for mackerel, trout and bluefish.