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Planked Whitefish
This is one of the most satisfactory fishes for planking. Choose one weighing about two and one-half or three pounds, and follow directions given previously.
The entry is a cross-reference: the book assumes you have already read its general directions for planking, and only tells you what size fish to buy. Here is what those missing directions amounted to, and what has changed since.
- What planking means hereA split, cleaned fish is laid skin-side down on a thick hardwood board and cooked by radiant heat, originally before an open fire and later, in gas-equipped kitchens, under a broiler or in a hot oven. The board is served at the table with the fish still on it.
- The plank itselfUse untreated oak, hickory, maple or ash at least three-quarters of an inch thick, never pine or any board sold with a finish on it. Oil it and heat it empty before the fish goes on, or the wood will pull moisture from the flesh and stick.
- Heat and timeA 2.5 to 3 lb split whitefish takes about 20 to 25 minutes in a hot oven, or until the thickest part reaches 145F. Fish planked under a broiler needs watching from about 12 minutes on.
- The hingePreheat the plank and baste the fish with melted butter two or three times as it cooks. Whitefish is fat but the exposed cut surface dries fast under direct heat, and an unbasted planked fish turns to cotton at the edges.
- The fishGreat Lakes whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) is still sold, mainly around the lakes and often frozen. Any moderately fatty fish that splits well substitutes: lake trout, bluefish, small salmon, Spanish mackerel.
- The borderPeriod service commonly meant a piped ring of duchess potatoes around the fish, browned toward the end of cooking, with the whole thing sent out garnished with lemon and parsley. Allow for it when sizing the plank.
- YieldA 3 lb whole whitefish yields roughly a pound to a pound and a quarter of cooked flesh, enough for three or four as a main course.
- Care of the boardScrape and wash with hot water only, no detergent soaking, and dry flat. A plank that is soaped or run through a dishwasher warps and holds the smell of the last fish.
Planking is one of the few genuinely North American cooking methods to survive into printed cookbooks, and it is generally traced to Native fishing camps around the Great Lakes and the northeastern rivers, where split fish was pinned to a board and stood before a fire. By the late nineteenth century it had been taken up by American hotels and shore clubs as a piece of theater, the blackened board carried to the table ringed with piped potato, and whitefish and shad are among the fish often associated with it. Butterick's cook book, issued by a pattern company to households furnishing themselves on a budget, treats it as an ordinary domestic method rather than a restaurant flourish; in that version the open hearth the technique was invented for plays no part, and the plank simply moves into the oven.