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Halibut à la Poulette
A slice of halibut, weighing 1½ lbs. 1/4 cup melted butter 1/8 teaspoon pepper 2 teaspoons lemon juice Few drops onion juice ¼ teaspoon salt Clean fish and cut in eight fillets. Add seasonings to melted butter, and put dish containing butter in saucepan of hot water to keep butter melted. Take up each fillet separately with a fork, dip in butter, roll and fasten with a small wooden skewer. Put in a shallow pan, dredge with flour, and bake twelve minutes in hot oven. Remove skewers, arrange on platter for serving, pour around one and one-half cups Béchamel Sauce, and garnish with yolks of two hardboiled eggs rubbed through a strainer, whites of hard-boiled eggs cut in strips, lemon cut fan-shaped, and parsley. Moulded Fish, Normandy Sauce Remove skin and bones from a thick piece of halibut, finely chop fish, and force through a sieve (there should be one and one-third cups). Pound in mortar, adding gradually whites two eggs. Add one and one-fourth cups heavy cream, and salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste. Turn into a buttered fish-mould, cover with buttered paper, set in pan of hot water, and bake until fish is firm. Turn on serving dish and surround with PLANKED HADDOCK. - Page 168.
FILLETS OF FISH À LA BEMENT. - Page 171.
OYSTER COCKTAIL I. - Page 180.
OYSTER COCKTAIL II. - Page 180.
Normandy Sauce. Cook skin and bones of fish with three slices carrot, one slice onion, sprig of parsley, bit of bay leaf, one-fourth teaspoon peppercorns, and two cups cold water, thirty minutes, and strain; there should be one cup. Melt two tablespoons butter, add three tablespoons flour, fish stock, and one-third cup heavy cream. Bring to boiling-point and add yolks two eggs. Season with salt, pepper, cayenne, and one tablespoon Sauterne.
Two related dishes have run together here, plus some stray plate captions from the facing photographs. The halibut rolls are the main recipe; the moulded fish and Normandy sauce that follow are a separate entry, and the lines about planked haddock and oyster cocktails are page references, not instructions.
- The seasoning measurementsThe printed page was checked: the butter mixture takes 1/4 cup melted butter, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon pepper, 2 teaspoons lemon juice, and a few drops of onion juice. That is enough seasoned butter to coat all eight fillets.
- Hot ovenThe book gives no temperatures; "hot oven" in period American usage is generally taken as somewhere around 425-450F. Twelve minutes at that heat suits thin rolled fillets cut from a 1 1/2 lb steak; halibut is lean and dries out fast, so watch it closely.
- Onion juiceGrate a peeled onion on a fine rasp and use the liquid that collects, or press a few gratings in a garlic press. It gives flavour without any pieces to mar the white sauce.
- SkewersSmall wooden skewers means what we would call cocktail picks or short bamboo skewers. Soak them briefly so they do not scorch, and count them as you pull them out.
- Cutting the filletsA 1 1/2 lb halibut steak yields eight thin strips only if you cut it off the bone and slice each side lengthwise. Chilled fish handles far better; the butter dip is there partly to hold the roll together, so keep it liquid over the hot water as directed.
- Béchamel hereThe book's Béchamel is a white sauce built on white stock rather than milk alone. A well-seasoned milk béchamel of medium thickness, 1 1/2 cups, serves the same purpose; pour it around the fish, not over, so the flour crust stays distinct.
- The moulded fishThis is a mousseline forcemeat: sieved raw halibut bound with egg white and cream, baked in a water bath until firm, roughly 30-40 minutes at 350F for a small mould. Keep fish, whites and cream cold at every stage or the emulsion breaks and weeps. A food processor replaces the sieve and mortar.
- Normandy sauceAdd the egg yolks off the heat, tempering them with a little hot sauce first; once they are in, the sauce must not boil again. "Sauterne" in American books of this date was a loose label for white wine and need not mean the sweet Bordeaux Sauternes; any dry-to-off-dry white works, and a tablespoon is all it takes.
- YieldThe halibut serves four as a main course, six as a first course. The moulded fish, at about 1 1/3 cups of fish, serves four.
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