Boiled Halibut
Purchase a thick slice cut through the body, or the tail piece, which is considered the richest. Wrap it in a floured cloth and lay it in warm water with salt in it. A piece weighing six pounds should be cooked in half an hour after the water begins to boil. Melted butter or butter substitute and parsley are eaten with it.
If any is left, lay it in a deep dish and sprinkle on it a little salt, throw over it twelve cloves in some vinegar, and it will, when cold, have much the flavor of lobster.
A plain poach that depends almost entirely on restraint. Halibut is lean and firm, and the half-hour in the original will give you dry, flaking slabs.
- The hinge: heat, not a boilBring the water only to a bare shiver, around 160-180F, and hold it there. A rolling boil batters the flakes apart and squeezes out moisture; halibut is done at 130-135F at the thickest point.
- TimingReckon roughly 10 minutes per inch of thickness rather than by total weight. A six-pound steak cut through the body is perhaps 2 inches thick and wants 15-20 minutes, not 30 after the boil begins.
- The floured clothAn old trick to keep the piece intact when lifting it out. Cheesecloth or a clean kitchen towel works the same way, and so does a wire poaching rack or a wide skimmer. The flour probably does little beyond keeping the cloth from sticking.
- Starting in warm waterDeliberate, and worth keeping. A cold-to-warm start lets the fish heat evenly instead of seizing at the surface. Salt the water well, about a tablespoon per quart; a bay leaf, a few peppercorns and a splash of vinegar or white wine cost nothing.
- "Butter substitute"Period phrasing for margarine or oleo, which turns up in American books from the later nineteenth century onward and especially in years when butter was dear. Use butter, melted with chopped parsley and lemon.
- The leftover "lobster"A quick vinegar-and-clove cure that borrows the sharp, spiced note of old-fashioned pickled lobster. Keep it covered in the refrigerator, not in a cool larder, and eat it within two or three days. Twelve cloves is a lot; six is plenty for a pound or so of fish.
- YieldSix pounds of halibut on the bone serves eight to ten. For four, buy about a pound and a half to two pounds and poach it in a wide pan or deep skillet.
- Tail pieceThe original calls the tail piece the richest, offering it as an alternative to a thick slice cut through the body. Either works for poaching.
Boiled fish with melted butter was the everyday English-inherited treatment in American kitchens through the nineteenth century, and halibut, landed in quantity off New England, was a firm white fish that stood up to it. The final line is the interesting part: pickling cooked fish in spiced vinegar was a common household way of stretching a large piece over several days before mechanical refrigeration was widespread, and the comparison to lobster reflects a real habit of the period, since pickled lobster was itself sold in vinegar and cloves.