Home › Cod Sounds Boiled › Cod Sounds Boiled
Cod Sounds Boiled
AHИЯOHT 164. Soak them in warm water half an hour, then scrape and clean; and if to be dressed white, boil them in milk and water; when tender, serve them in a napkin with egg sauce. The salt must not be much soaked out, unless for fricassee. 165. TO LOOK LIKE SMALL CHICKENS. - Wash three large sounds nicely, and boil in milk and water, but not too tender; when cold, put a forcemeat of chopped oysters, crumbs of bread, a bit of butter, nutmeg, pepper, salt, and the yolks of two eggs; spread it over the sounds, and roll up each in the form of a chicken, skewering it; then lard them as you would chickens, dust a little flour over, and roast them in a tin oven slowly. When done enough, pour over them a fine oyster sauce. Serve for side or corner dish. 166. TO BROIL. - Scald in hot water, rub well with salt, pull off the dirty skin, and put them to simmer till tender; take them out, flour, and broil. While this is being done, season a little brown gravy with pepper, salt, a tea-spoonful of soy, and a little mustard; give it a boil with a bit of flour and butter, and pour it over the sounds. 167. EN RAGOUT. - Prepare as above; then stew them in white gravy, seasoned, cream, butter, and a little bit of flour added before you serve, gently boiling up. A bit of lemon peel, nutmeg, and the least pinch of pounded mace should give the flavour.
Four treatments of cod sounds — the swim bladders of the fish, sold salted in barrels through the nineteenth century. The whole group hinges on getting the salt down to a pleasant level without washing out all of it, then cooking gently until the sound turns translucent and gelatinous rather than rubbery.
- What a sound isThe sound is the cod's swim bladder, a flat white membrane rich in gelatine. It is still eaten in Newfoundland and Iceland, and salted or frozen sounds can sometimes be found through specialist fishmongers and salt-fish suppliers; a good fishmonger may be able to order it. Fresh sounds need no soaking, only a brief scald and scrape.
- SoakingHalf an hour in warm water suits lightly salted sounds. Heavily salted barrel stock needs several hours to overnight in cold water in the refrigerator, changed two or three times. The instruction not to soak the salt fully out is deliberate; the sound is mild in itself, so the residual salt presumably does the seasoning.
- The skinAfter scalding, the dark membrane on the outside rubs off with coarse salt and a cloth. Remove all of it; left on, it stays tough and tastes muddy.
- Boiling in milk and waterHalf milk, half water, held just below a simmer. Sounds turn from opaque to gelatinous and yielding in roughly 30 to 45 minutes depending on thickness. Hard boiling makes them shrink and go stringy.
- "A tin oven"A reflector oven set open-side to the fire. For No. 165 use a conventional oven at 325–350°F, basting; the recipe's 'slowly' suggests a gentle heat, and the stuffed rolls need mainly to heat through and colour, 30 to 40 minutes, since the sounds have already been part-boiled ('but not too tender').
- LardingLarding means threading strips of pork back fat through the surface with a larding needle. A modern equivalent is to wrap each roll in a thin sheet of fatty bacon or barding fat, secured with the skewer.
- Oysters in the forcemeatChop the oysters raw and mix them into the crumbs; they cook in the roasting. Two eggs' yolks will bind enough forcemeat for three large sounds — add crumbs until it holds a shape rather than following the list slavishly.
- SoyThe teaspoonful of soy in No. 166 is soy sauce, sold in Britain from the eighteenth century as a bottled store sauce. Dark soy or a Chinese-style light soy both work; it is there for colour and savour in the brown gravy.
- YieldThree large sounds dressed as No. 165 make a side dish for four to six. Boiled or ragouted, reckon on one or two sounds a person as part of a fish course.