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To Boil Fish
113. After cleaning and adding salt and vinegar (see par. 111), the fish must be put into the water while cold, and set to boil very gently, or the outside will break before the inner part is done. The water should also be carefully skimmed, or the fish will look dirty, from the scum setting on it as it is taken out. Crimped fish should be put into boiling water; and when it boils up, pour a little cold water in to check extreme heat, on the principles advocated by Liebig, and explained at par. 85; after which simmer the fish for the proper number of minutes. If the fish is large, the fish-plate on which it is to be done may be drawn up to see if it is ready, when it will leave the bone. It should then be immediately taken out of the water on the plate, or it will soon be woolly. The fish-plate should be set crosswise over the kettle, to keep hot for serving; and a clean cloth should cover the fish to prevent it losing its colour,
This is a method rather than a dish: the standing instructions for poaching whole fish that the rest of the book's fish recipes refer back to. Two details carry all the weight — a cold-water start and water that never actually boils.
- The hinge: never let it boil"Boil very gently" here describes what we would now call a poach, with the surface barely trembling rather than moving; modern poaching guidance usually puts that somewhere in the region of 160-180F, though the book gives no temperature. A rolling boil tears the skin and flesh off the outside before the centre is warm, which is exactly the failure the author is warning against (except for crimped fish, which he sends into boiling water on purpose).
- Cold start, and whyWhole fish goes into cold salted water and comes up to temperature with it, so the thickest part and the thinnest part finish closer together. This still holds. Smaller cuts such as fillets and steaks are the ones usually put into already-hot liquid.
- "Crimped" fishCrimping was a fishmonger's trick, now essentially gone: a very fresh fish, usually cod or salmon, was scored to the bone in thick slices while still stiff and dropped into cold water to firm the flesh. If your fishmonger has not crimped it, treat the fish as ordinary and use the cold-water start.
- The Liebig referenceJustus von Liebig, the German chemist, argued that a brief hit of high heat sealed the outside of meat and fish and kept the juices in — hence the splash of cold water to arrest the boil afterwards. The sealing theory has since been discarded; the splash of cold water is still a serviceable way to knock a pot back off the boil.
- Fish-plate and kettleA fish kettle is a long lidded pan with a perforated tray, the fish-plate, that lifts the whole fish out intact. A roasting tin with a rack, or the fish wrapped in a doubled sling of cheesecloth, does the same job.
- SkimmingThe grey scum is coagulated albumen from the fish. Skim it as it rises rather than at the end, or it settles back onto the skin as the fish is lifted clear.
- Testing and "woolly"The flesh leaving the bone at the thickest point is the traditional test; an instant-read thermometer at the backbone is more reliable, and standard food-safety guidance for fish is 145F. "Woolly" is the dry, cottony texture of overcooked fish, and the author is right that it develops fast in water left standing after cooking.
- Salt and vinegarThe proportions live in the cross-referenced paragraph, not here. A working ratio for poaching liquid is about 1 tablespoon salt and 1 tablespoon vinegar per quart of water.
- Holding for the tableResting the drained fish-plate across the kettle mouth lets steam keep the fish warm without stewing it, and the damp cloth stops the surface drying and greying. It will not hold long before quality drops.