Home › Salad Dressings › Fish Stock
Fish Stock
(For use in fish aspic, or any fish dish.) Cover the bones and trimmings from the fish that is to be used for the salad with cold water; add, if convenient, the body bones of a lobster or two. Add also one or two pounds of an inexpensive fish, and a pint of water for each pound of fish. All must be fresh. Bring the water slowly to the boiling-point and let simmer an hour, then add, for each quart of water, one tablespoonful, each, of chopped onion and carrot, a sprig of parsley and one teaspoonful of sweet herbs, sautéd delicately in two tablespoonfuls of butter. Season to taste with salt and cayenne.
Aspic Jelly from Bouillon Capsules, Etc.
Put over the fire one-fourth a cup, each, of onion and carrot, sautéd in two tablespoonfuls of butter, two stalks of celery, a bay leaf, half a dozen peppercorns and two or three cloves, with one quart of water; add three bouillon capsules, or three teaspoonfuls of beef extract (not home-made) dissolved in two cups of boiling water; let simmer about half an hour, then add one box of gelatine softened in one cup of cold water, any additional flavoring desired, and the slightly beaten white and crushed shell of one egg (more shells will be advantageous). Bring slowly to the boiling-
Two related preparations run together here: a fish stock built on the trimmings of the fish you are already serving, and a shortcut aspic from commercial beef extract. The text breaks off mid-clarification, so the ending has to be supplied from standard practice.
- Simmer far less than an hourFish frames give up their flavour and gelatine in 20 to 30 minutes; past that the bones turn the stock bitter and faintly glue-like, and the delicate flavour flattens. Take it off at half an hour at the outside, then add the sautéed vegetables and herbs and give them ten minutes more.
- Which fishUse lean white fish only: sole, flounder, halibut, cod, snapper, bass. Salmon, mackerel, bluefish and other oily fish make a stock that is cloudy, strong and impossible to clarify. Rinse the bones well and remove gills, which carry blood and bitterness.
- Sweet herbsA period catch-all for the mild kitchen herbs — thyme, marjoram, summer savory, sometimes basil — as opposed to strong ones like sage or rosemary. A teaspoon of dried thyme and marjoram together is a fair reading.
- Bouillon capsules and beef extractCapsules were a commercial concentrated bouillon of the period; the stock cube is their descendant. "Beef extract (not home-made)" points to the branded concentrates then on sale, of which Liebig's and Bovril were the best known. Such products are generally salty, so hold back the salt until the aspic is finished.
- One box of gelatineBoxed granulated gelatine of the period generally ran about an ounce, roughly four modern quarter-ounce envelopes. Note that the liquid here amounts to considerably more than a quart, so expect a moderate rather than a very firm set; reduce the liquid if you want it stiff enough to unmould cleanly.
- Finishing the clarificationThe passage is cut off. The method is to whisk in the egg white and crushed shell, bring the liquid slowly to a boil while stirring, stop stirring as it rises, let it settle a few minutes off the heat, then ladle it through a scalded cloth without disturbing the raft. Anything less than a gentle, unhurried boil leaves the aspic cloudy.
- The proportion of waterA pint of water per pound of fish applies to the added inexpensive fish, but the bones and trimmings are simply covered. Aim for water just level with the bones — an inch of extra liquid means a weak stock you will have to reduce, and reducing fish stock hard makes it gluey.
- YieldHard to fix, since the bones are simply covered and only the added fish is measured; expect roughly a quart to a quart and a half of stock. The aspic recipe starts from rather more than a quart of liquid, enough for a moderate mould.
- KeepingFish stock does not keep. Refrigerate and use within two days, or freeze it; the aspic itself should be eaten within a day or two of setting.
Fish aspic belonged to the cold-table cookery that was a familiar part of American entertaining around 1900 — moulded salads, jellied fish, chaudfroid — where the point was as much appearance as flavour, and a glass-clear jelly was the mark of a competent kitchen. The instruction to save the lobster body bones is thrift of a kind the period took seriously: the claws and tail went to the salad, the carcass went into the pot. What dates the second recipe most sharply is the frank endorsement of bouillon capsules and branded beef extract. Meat extracts, generally traced to Justus von Liebig's work in the mid-nineteenth century and sold widely by the 1880s, appear here as a positive choice rather than a compromise — hence the pointed parenthesis "not home-made."