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Turbans of Fish En Casserole
Prepare slices of halibut about the size of one's hand, with all bone and skin removed and sufficiently thin to roll easily. Trim all to uniform size, dip each in melted butter, squeeze over them lemon juice and onion juice and sprinkle with salt. Beginning at the widest end, roll the slice of fish and secure with two toothpicks. Set the turbans in a buttered and heated casserole and pour in a little stock made by simmering the bones and trimmings of the halibut in a little water, together with a few slices each of carrot and onion. Baste occasionally while these turbans are cooking in a moderate oven. When done, drain off the liquid and add to it enough white sauce to thicken. Return this sauce to the casserole, and, after a moment or two more in the oven, serve.
BANANAS EN CASSEROLE-A delicious sweet entrée to be served with game, mutton or beef is made from bananas baked en casserole and served from the dish. Peel a sufficient number of bananas which are not too ripe. They should be very firm and sound. Remove the coarse threads and divide in quarters, cutting first crosswise and then the long way. Place in buttered and heated casserole and pour over them a sauce made by melting a small glass of currant or wild grape jelly in a cup of boiling water and mixing with it the juice of a small lemon. Cover the casserole and bake until bananas are tender. The cover may be removed at last moment and the bananas sprinkled with granulated sugar and allowed to brown slightly.
Two dishes run together here: rolled halibut baked in stock and finished with white sauce, and a jellied banana side meant for the meat course. Both are straightforward once the vocabulary is sorted out.
- What a "casserole" means hereIn this section of Butterick the word means the vessel — a lidded earthenware or flameproof baking dish brought to the table. Any covered gratin dish or Dutch oven works, and "buttered and heated" means preheat it empty so the fish is not set into a cold dish.
- Oven temperatureA moderate oven is usually reckoned at about 350F. The turbans need roughly 15 to 20 minutes at that heat depending on thickness; many cooks take halibut off at 130 to 135F internal, though official guidance gives 145F, and the fish turns dry and cottony well before it looks overcooked.
- Cutting the fishAsk for halibut cut from the fillet on the bias, about a quarter of an inch thick and four to five inches long. Anything thicker will crack rather than roll. Two wooden cocktail picks per turban, and remove them before the sauce goes back in.
- Onion juiceAn old shortcut for onion flavour without pieces: grate a peeled onion on a fine grater and squeeze the pulp through cheesecloth. A teaspoon or two is plenty for six turbans.
- The stockAsk the fishmonger for the frame and trimmings. Simmer them with a few slices of carrot and onion for about 20 minutes; fish stock is generally held to suffer if cooked much longer. Strain, and pour about half an inch into the dish, not enough to float the fish.
- Thickening at the endThe white sauce is added to the drained cooking liquid, as the recipe directs, so keep the sauce fairly stiff: 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons flour to a cup of milk. Combine gradually or it will thin to a broth.
- The bananasFirm, barely yellow fruit is essential; ripe bananas collapse to paste. A "small glass" of jelly is roughly a quarter cup. Covered at 350F they need about 20 minutes, then a few minutes uncovered with sugar to glaze.
- YieldFigure two turbans per person, so about 1 1/2 lb of halibut for four. The bananas serve four to six as an accompaniment; one banana per person is the usual reckoning.
The name turban is generally traced to French service, though in French cookery it more often describes fillets arranged in a ring or border mould than a rolled escalope; the connection sometimes drawn with paupiettes and the older English "collared" fish is uncertain. The Butterick Cook Book (1911) devotes a whole section to casserole cooking, at a time when the glazed earthenware casserole was a fashionable new purchase for American households, sold as a dish you could both cook and serve in. The bananas are the more revealing entry: by the 1900s steamship refrigeration had made bananas cheap and year-round in the United States, and cookbooks of the decade worked hard to find respectable savoury uses for them, here as a sweet-tart foil to game and mutton in the place a spiced fruit relish or currant jelly would otherwise occupy.