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Haddocks and Whiting
168. To BOIL. --Treat like cod-fish, the allowance for time being very nearly the same, unless very small, when it may be reduced onethird. 169. TO DRY. - Choose them of two or three pounds' weight; take out the gills, eyes, and entrails, and remove the blood from the backbone; wipe them dry, and put some salt into the bodies and eyes; lay them on a board for a night, then hang them up in a dry place, and after three or four days they will be fit to dress; skin and rub them with egg, and strew crumbs over them; lay them before the fire, and baste with butter until brown enough. Serve with egg sauce. 170. WHITINGS, if large, are excellent in this way; and it will prove an accommodation in the country where there is no regular supply of fish.
SKATE. 171. SKATE, THORNBACK, AND MAIDS (all usually sold as skate), should be hung one day at least before dressing. They may be boiled in slices (called crimped), or fried in crumbs with egg, or in butter. MACKEREL. 172. Boil till the tail splits, and serve with butter and fennel. The time is usually about ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes, according to size. 173. TO BROIL them, split them and sprinkle with herbs, pepper, and salt; or stuff with the same, crumbs, and chopped fennel. 174. COLLARED, as eel (page 61). 175. POTTED.-Clean, season, and bake them in a pan with mixed spice, bay-leaves, and some butter; when cold, lay them in a pottingpot, and cover with butter. 176. PICKLED.-Boil them, then boil some of the liquor with a few peppercorns, bay-leaves, and a third part of the quantity of vinegar; when cold, pour it over them. 177. Another Method of Pickling. -Clean and divide them, then cut each side into three, or, leaving them undivided, cut each fish into five or six pieces; to six large mackerel take nearly an ounce of pepper,
This is a run of short fishmonger's notes rather than a single recipe: boiled and dried haddock, skate, and half a dozen ways with mackerel. Two of the entries o. 169 and no. 175) are preserving methods that should not be attempted from these directions, but the fresh-cooking notes still work.
- Why the drying method fails todayNo. 169 salts the fish by eye, then hangs it at room temperature for three or four days before cooking. There is no measured cure strength, no controlled temperature and no humidity control, so spoilage organisms and toxin-forming bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus can multiply before the fish has dried, and toxin already formed is not destroyed by the later browning before the fire. Use a current cold-smoking or salt-curing recipe with weighed cure and specified temperatures instead.
- Why the potting fails todayNo. 175 bakes mackerel, packs it cold and seals it under a butter cap. That butter seal creates the low-oxygen, low-acid, room-temperature conditions associated with botulism in potted fish and meat. The pickled version (no. 176) is safer in principle because of the vinegar, but it dilutes the vinegar into the fish liquor (a third part by quantity) without giving its strength or the final acidity, so it is not a formula to rely on.
- "Boil" means barely simmerEvery fish here is better at a bare shiver, around 180F, than at a rolling boil, which shreds haddock and bursts mackerel skin before the centre is done. Whole mackerel of half a pound take nearer eight to ten minutes; the tail splitting is a reliable enough sign, but an opaque, just-flaking backbone is more reliable.
- "Before the fire" and "to dress"Cooking before the fire means radiant heat from one side, with frequent basting and turning; a hot grill or broiler about four inches from the element is the equivalent. "To dress" in this book simply means to cook and send to table, not to garnish.
- Crimped skateCrimping meant scoring or slicing very fresh fish and plunging it into cold salted water to firm the flesh. Skate benefits from the day's hanging the entry calls for because the flesh is tough and gelatinous when too fresh; ammonia, by contrast, builds up with age, so if it smells strongly of ammonia when you buy it, it is past its best.
- Thornback and maidsThornback is a distinct ray, while 'maids' was a market name for small skate or ray, often young thornback, all sold interchangeably as skate. Several rays and true skates are now under catch restriction in UK and EU waters, so buy from a labelled, managed source rather than assuming any "skate" is the same fish.
- Egg sauce and fennel butterEgg sauce is a plain white sauce with chopped hard-boiled egg stirred through. Butter and fennel for mackerel is melted butter with chopped fennel fronds, sharpened with a squeeze of lemon or a spoonful of the cooking liquor; the anise is there to cut the oiliness of the fish.
- QuantitiesA haddock of two to three pounds serves four; one mackerel per person is the usual allowance. Mackerel is highly perishable and should be cooked the day it is bought.