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Brook Trout Moulded in Aspic
Pour a little chicken aspic into a pickle or other dish of suitable shape and size for a single fish; when nearly set, lay a trout, prepared as above, upon the aspic, add a few spoonfuls of aspic, let it harden so that the fish may become fixed in place, then add aspic to cover. Slices of cucumber pickles, capers, or other ornaments, may be used.
When the aspic is thoroughly set and chilled, remove from the mould and serve on two lettuce leaves, with any dressing desired.
An assembly recipe rather than a cooking one: the trout is already poached and cooled by the time this page picks up the story, and what follows is a lesson in setting a whole fish in jelly without it floating or listing. The technique is entirely sound; only the vocabulary and the food-safety margins need updating.
- The hinge: build in layersThe whole method depends on letting each layer set before adding the next. Pour a shallow base, chill until tacky, seat the fish, anchor it with a few spoonfuls, chill again, then flood to cover. Poured all at once, the trout floats, drifts off-centre and sets crooked.
- "Prepared as above""Prepared as above" — the fish comes from an earlier preparation in the book, presumably a poached and cooled trout. Any gently poached small trout, thoroughly chilled and patted dry, will do. Surface moisture is the enemy of a clean-setting jelly.
- Chicken aspicA well-reduced, clarified chicken stock that sets firm on its own gelatin, or is helped along with a little added gelatin. For a modern kitchen, allow roughly 1 tablespoon (one envelope) of powdered gelatin per 2 cups of cold stock if the stock is not naturally gelatinous; it should set firm enough to unmould but still yield to a spoon.
- "A pickle dish"A long, narrow, shallow oval dish of the sort kept on Victorian tables for pickles and relishes. A small loaf pan, a narrow terrine, or a plastic-wrapped-lined dish of any shape that fits one fish is the equivalent.
- Cucumber picklesCucumber pickles — most likely a sharp cucumber pickle, closer to a cornichon or a firm dill than a sweet gherkin, though the recipe does not specify. Cut ornaments thin, blot them dry, and set them into a barely-set layer so they hold position rather than sliding to the bottom.
- UnmouldingDip the mould in hot water for five to eight seconds only, no longer, then invert onto a chilled plate. Overheating melts the outer skin of jelly and dulls the surface. Lining the dish with plastic wrap first makes the whole thing lift out without the dip.
- Timing and holdingAllow at least four hours in the refrigerator, and overnight is better. Cooked fish in jelly is a low-acid, high-protein food: assemble cold, keep it refrigerated, and do not let it stand out on a buffet for more than two hours.
- Yield and dressingYield and dressing — one moulded trout per person, on the two lettuce leaves the book specifies. The recipe leaves the dressing open; a mayonnaise or green mayonnaise suits it, where a plain vinaigrette slides off the jelly and pools.
Aspic work of this kind was the visible proof of a well-run late-Victorian kitchen. Clarified jelly demanded a long, carefully skimmed stock, an egg-white raft, and a cook with the patience to strain it twice, and the resulting cold moulded dishes were a mainstay of luncheon tables, buffets and the summer months when hot food was unwelcome. Sold gelatin, granulated and reliable, had by the 1890s made the process far less laborious than the calf's-foot boilings of a generation earlier, which is one reason moulded fish and chicken recur so often in American household books of this period. Brook trout in particular carried a note of the sporting table: small, freshwater, often brought home by the fisherman rather than bought, and just the right size to set one whole fish per portion, which is exactly the effect this recipe is after.