Home › Strong Fish Gravy › Strong Fish Gravy
Strong Fish Gravy
293. Skin two or three eels or some flounders; gut and wash them very clean; cut them into small pieces, and put into a saucepan. Cover them with water, and add a little crust of bread toasted brown, two blades of mace, some whole pepper, sweet herbs, a piece of lemon-peel, an anchovy or two, and a tea-spoonful of horseradish. Cover close, and simmer; add a bit of butter and flour, and boil with the above.
This is a fish stock built for strength rather than clarity — the eighteenth-century answer to a meat gravy on days when meat was not eaten. Nothing here is difficult, but the original assumes knowledge the modern cook has to supply.
- The point of the dishThis is a base, not a sauce to serve on its own. It is strained and then used to moisten fish pies, to sauce boiled fish, or to enrich stewed eels. Treat the finished liquid as a concentrated fish stock with seasoning already in it.
- Simmering timeNo time is given. Fish bones give everything up quickly: 25 to 35 minutes at a bare simmer is enough, and boiling hard or going past the hour turns the liquid cloudy and faintly bitter. Skim the grey foam that rises in the first ten minutes.
- EelsFresh eel is now hard to buy in Britain and European eel stocks are severely depleted; flounder, as the recipe allows, is the practical choice, or any lean white fish frame — plaice, whiting, sole. Avoid salmon, mackerel or other oily fish, which will make the gravy rank.
- Blades of maceMace is the outer covering of the nutmeg; a "blade" is one dried piece, in the region of a quarter to a half teaspoon of ground mace, depending on the piece. Two blades suits a moderate saucepanful; the recipe itself gives no quantity of liquid.
- The toasted crustA piece of bread crust toasted dark, not burnt, gives colour and a faint roasted note. Toasted crust for colouring a gravy turns up repeatedly in period recipe books. Burnt bread will make the whole pot acrid.
- AnchovyAn eighteenth- and nineteenth-century anchovy meant a whole salt-cured fish from the barrel, considerably saltier than a modern oil-packed fillet. Two tinned fillets, or a teaspoon of anchovy paste, is the equivalent. Add no salt until the gravy is strained and tasted.
- HorseradishAssume freshly grated root, not the creamed sauce sold in jars, which contains vinegar, sugar and dairy and will curdle in a simmering pot.
- The butter and flourWork equal weights of soft butter and flour to a paste — about 15 g of each per pint — and whisk it into the strained, simmering liquid in small pieces. Adding raw flour to the bones as they cook, as a literal reading suggests, gives a pasty gravy that is very hard to strain.
- YieldThe recipe gives no measure of water and no yield: the fish is simply covered. Expect roughly a saucepanful of strong liquid from the two or three eels or the 'some flounders' specified, and portion or freeze whatever is not used.