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Court Bouillon
All boiled fish need added flavor, and for this the Europeans invented court bouillon, a word now accepted in our own language to define any highly seasoned fish stock. And court bouillon, you will find, is specially good for whitefish, weaks, haddock, carp and cod. First make a broth by boiling in three pints of water a chopped mash of one carrot, one onion, a small celery stalk, two sprigs of parsley and a bit of bay leaf. Add two teaspoons of salt and a dozen peppercorns. After boiling this bouillon for half an hour, strain and enrich it with a cup of dry white wine. When it boils up again it is ready to receive the fish and make them into something much tastier than Nature ever intended.
Never turn your nose up at codfish. If it's fresh out of the water, though, its flesh is too light and flaky; so to keep it from tasting as insipid as whiting or ling, it must first be made firm by the alchemy of wine, vinegar or lemon. But that's easy. Just slip a jigger of vinegar into every quart of water the fish is to be boiled in. And if it's to be baked simply soak it a couple of hours in a snappy mixture of lemon, white wine, sprigs of parsley, a little sliced onion and a clove of garlic. Then wipe the fish dry, stuff it with a mixture of chopped raw codfish, moistened bread crumbs, chopped onions, plenty of melted butter, minced parsley and the juice of one lemon. Make a bed of sliced bacon on the bottom of the pan, lay the fish in and blanket it with more bacon. Hollandaise or other egg sauce should accompany it, with maybe a sour note of mustard.
Two recipes sit inside this entry: a basic court bouillon for poaching, and a baked stuffed cod that borrows the same acid-and-wine logic. Both are workable as written, but the original assumes a cook who already knows what a poaching liquid should look like.
- Never let it boil with the fish in itThe text says the bouillon should boil up again before receiving the fish, and that is right for the liquid alone. Once the fish goes in, hold it at a bare shiver, 160-175F, or the flesh will shred and the outer layer will turn cottony.
- Three pintsSix cups, which will poach one or two modest fillets or a single small whole fish. For a 3-4 lb whole fish you want enough to cover it, so double everything. The vegetables here are a standard mirepoix in miniature and scale without adjustment.
- A jiggerAn ounce and a half, so roughly three tablespoons of vinegar per quart of water. That is a light acidulation, not a marinade, and it is doing what the author says: firming the surface protein so flaky white fish holds together.
- Weaks and lingWeakfish, also sold as sea trout, common on the Atlantic coast and still caught but less often marketed. Ling is a cod relative; lingcod, despite the name, is a different fish entirely, and 'ling' has been applied loosely to several unrelated fish in American markets. Any firm white fish works: cod, haddock, pollock, hake.
- Timing the poachNo time is given because the original assumes judgement. Reckon about eight to ten minutes per inch of thickness at a bare simmer; for safety, cook to an internal 145F at the thickest point.
- The baked codNo oven temperature is given. A moderate oven, around 375F and roughly 20 minutes per pound, is a reasonable modern reading; cook until the raw-fish stuffing is thoroughly done at the centre. The bacon above and below is there to baste a lean fish and should be laid on in a single overlapping layer.
- SaltTwo teaspoons in three pints is a light brine and appropriate, but if you are reducing the strained bouillon later for a sauce it will concentrate fast. Season the reduction, not the raw stock, if that is the plan.
- Save the liquidStrained poaching bouillon, once it has taken on the fish, makes the base for a velouté or a chowder. It keeps three days refrigerated and freezes well.