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Halibut, with Cucumber Sauce
Cut a slice of halibut into three-inch squares. Dip each in beaten egg, then in cracker dust that has been seasoned with salt and pepper, and fry to a delicate brown. Serve with cucumber sauce.
A plain breaded fry that depends almost entirely on the thickness of the cut and the heat of the fat. Two words in it need translating, and the sauce it names is a separate recipe elsewhere in the book.
- Cracker dustFinely crushed plain soda or water crackers, rolled to a sandy powder rather than crumbs. Unsalted saltines put through a food processor are the closest match; panko behaves differently, giving a shaggier, crisper crust.
- The slice of halibutHalibut was commonly sold as cross-cut steaks, bone in, and a piece around an inch thick is what a recipe like this assumes. Cut into three-inch squares that is roughly a 4-6 oz portion each. Boneless fillet works, but keep it at least three-quarters of an inch thick or it will overcook before the coating colours.
- Fry means shallow fryProbably a heavy skillet with perhaps a quarter-inch of hot fat rather than a deep fryer, though the recipe does not say which. Bring the fat to about 350-360F: cooler and the cracker dust soaks, hotter and it browns before the centre is done.
- Time and donenessThree to four minutes a side for inch-thick pieces. Halibut is very lean and turns dry and cottony past 130-135F internal, so pull it as soon as the flakes just separate.
- Order of dippingThe original goes straight from egg to cracker dust. A light dusting of flour first helps the egg grip a wet piece of fish, and the breading is less likely to slide off in the pan.
- Cucumber sauceThe book gives this sauce its own entry. Period cucumber sauces for fish are usually cold: grated or finely chopped cucumber, drained and folded into whipped cream or mayonnaise with vinegar, salt and pepper, though cooked versions also exist. Salt the cucumber and press out the water first or it will thin the sauce on the plate.
- YieldA one-pound halibut steak gives three or four squares, enough for two to three people as a main course with the sauce and a plain vegetable.
Halibut was one of the great commercial fish of the North Atlantic and Pacific in the late nineteenth century, shipped inland on ice in quantity, and its firm steak-like flesh made it a standard choice for frying and broiling in American cookbooks of the period. Cracker dust appears often in such recipes alongside flour and breadcrumbs: crackers were a pantry staple, kept well, and rolled down to a dry, even powder that browned reliably in fat. The cold cucumber sauce draws on the familiar pairing of cucumber with salmon and other rich or oily fish, here carried over to halibut as a cooling foil to the fried crust. Butterick's cookbook, published by the pattern company for a broad middle-class readership, favours exactly this sort of short, assumed-knowledge entry, with the sauce given its own place in the book rather than repeated here.