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Getting the Wood Flavor
Next to shad, the best plank fish are blues and trout still flipping from the sea, and bass, big or little mouth, from the lake. The plank must be of hardwood-oak, ash or hickory are the best-and at least a foot and a half long and a foot wide to bed the biggest fish, which in this method are the best. Like the wooden salad bowl, the plank improves with use. And the way to use it is simple: split the fish from head to tail, then cut them off, and plank the carcass skin-side-down with care. Douse with lemon juice or white wine, season with salt, freshly ground pepper and minced parsley. Brush with melted butter, tie the fish tight to the plank so it won't slip off and tilt up before live coals or slide under a grill for a quarter of an hour. The wood does something to it.
Pike is too dry a fish to plank unless it be liberally larded. The best way to treat a pike is to bake it. Stuff it with piquant anchovies, the salted kind that come in tins and must be soaked and filleted before using; or fill with bland oysters and call it fresh-water turkey. But the fisherman cooking his own seldom takes time for such chefs' tricks and hence is often disappointed, finding his pike more fun to catch than to eat.
But let's be realistic-probably all you'll catch is some perch which you'll be tempted just to throw in the frying pan and have it over. Don't do it! Plain frying can be as monotonous as recipes beginning with the classic direction: "Take a cup of fish." For your palate's sake try winepoached perch. It's no trick at all. Simply put the cleaned fish in a pan, barely cover with dry white wine and poach gently under a lid close down on the pan. When done, take up carefully, remove skin, reduce the cooking liquor, add butter, nutmeg and lemon juice, pour over the fish and go to it.
Two methods sit inside this passage: fish planked before live coals, and perch poached in white wine. Both are sound, but the plank needs more attention than the text gives it.
- The plank itselfUse untreated, unfinished hardwood only — oak, ash or hickory, as specified. Never pressure-treated lumber, plywood, or anything with glue, varnish or mineral oil; the binders and preservatives are not food-safe over heat. A butcher-block-grade board or a slab from a lumberyard's rough hardwood stock is what is meant.
- Soak or season firstA dry board set close before coals will scorch and can catch. Soaking the plank in water before its first use, or rubbing it with oil and warming it slowly at the edge of the fire, is one way to temper it. The text's remark that the plank improves with use is the author's own claim for it.
- "Split the fish from head to tail, then cut them off"This means butterfly the fish along the backbone and remove the head and tail, leaving a flat side of fish, skin down. A 2-4 lb bluefish, sea trout or bass handled this way lies about an inch thick at the shoulder.
- Tying it downButcher's twine works if you can wrap the plank, but the traditional fix is small nails or stainless steel screws through the thin edges of the fillet into the wood. Avoid galvanized or coated fasteners.
- A quarter of an hour is a starting pointFifteen minutes suits a thick side propped a hand's width from bright coals. Judge by the flesh: it is done when it has just turned opaque and separates. Cooks commonly pull fish at around 130-135F at the thickest part, though official guidance for fish is 145F. Under a hot grill or broiler, expect roughly 10-14 minutes.
- Anchovies for the pikeSalt-packed anchovies still exist but are now a specialty item; oil-packed fillets in a tin need no soaking and can be used directly, in a somewhat smaller quantity since they carry less salt. The text gives no oven setting; a moderate oven of about 375F and roughly 12 minutes per pound suits a stuffed 4-5 lb pike.
- Poaching the perchSmall whole perch need 5-8 minutes at a bare shiver — the surface should barely tremble. A rolling boil breaks the flesh apart and clouds the liquor you are about to reduce.
- The sauceReduce the poaching wine by about half, then whisk in cold butter off the heat a piece at a time so it emulsifies rather than splitting. Nutmeg should be a scrape, not a spoonful; lemon goes in last.
- YieldA planked side of 3-4 lb fish serves four. Allow two or three small perch per person.