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Southern Picked Fish
Boil any fish in salted water, with 2-3 bay leaves, onions, and whole spices. Pick fish to pieces, saving the head, fins, and tail. Mix with picked fish 2 tablespoons butter, 3 whole eggs, 1 cup milk, 1/2 cup wine, a handful of grated cheese, and some bread crumbs. Shape like a fish, adding the head, fins, and tail, sprinkle with cheese and bread crumbs, bake 30 minutes, and serve with drawn butter. 2-POUND FISH I ONION, SLICED I CARROT, SLICED I STALK CELERY, CHOPPED 2 GARLIC CLOVES, MINCED I BAY LEAF I SPRIG THYME I TABLESPOON FLOUR
A thrifty way to turn a poached fish into a moulded loaf that is then re-formed into the shape of the whole fish, head and tail included. The original gives no oven temperature and no yield, so both need filling in.
- Oven temperatureBake at 350–375F. Thirty minutes is right for a loaf about two inches thick; the centre should reach 160F and the surface should be set and lightly browned.
- Keep the head and tail intactThe hinge of the dish is the poaching. Lift the fish out whole on a cloth or a rack rather than draining it into a colander, or the head, fins and tail will break up and you lose the presentation entirely.
- Bread crumbs, unmeasuredNo quantity is given. Work in dry crumbs a few tablespoons at a time until the mixture just holds a shape. Too many and the loaf is dry and pasty.
- Three whole eggs plus a cup of milkThat is a generous amount of liquid custard for the fish to carry. If the mix looks loose, hold back part of the milk; it is easier to add than to correct.
- The wineThe recipe does not say which wine. A dry white suits the dish.
- Grated cheeseThe recipe does not specify the cheese; a hard grating cheese such as Parmesan or a dry aged Cheddar suits it. About a half cup in the mixture and a light dusting on top.
- Drawn butterNot simply melted butter. Drawn butter in American cookbooks of this era is a thin white sauce: a tablespoon each of butter and flour cooked together, a cup of hot water or fish broth whisked in, seasoned, and finished with more butter off the heat.
- YieldA two-pound fish yields roughly a pound of picked flesh, enough to serve about four with potatoes.
- Save the poaching liquidThe court bouillon of bay, onion and whole spices is worth straining and keeping for the drawn butter, which is otherwise a bland sauce made with plain water.
Picked fish — flaked cooked fish bound with egg, milk and crumbs — was standard economy cookery on both sides of the Atlantic, a way of stretching one fish across a table. What marks this version is the theatre of it: the loaf is rebuilt into the outline of the fish and the reserved head, fins and tail are pinned back on, so that a dish of picked fish arrives looking like a whole poached fish.