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Boiled Kingfish
Clean the fish, and place it in a fishkettle with enough clear fish broth to cover, and boil slowly. When cooked, strain the fish carefully, slip it on to a folded napkin, on a hot dish, garnish with parsley, and serve with a sauceboatful of either brown or white sauce.
A skeleton recipe of the kind Oscar wrote for cooks who already knew the drill. Two things carry it: the broth the fish sits in, and the fact that it must not actually boil.
- "Boil slowly" means poach"Boil slowly" here almost certainly means a bare simmer rather than a rolling boil, which shreds and tightens the flesh. Modern practice would hold the liquid at 160-175F, barely trembling, and reckon roughly 8-10 minutes per inch of thickness at the thickest point, until the flesh is opaque and pulls cleanly from the bone.
- What kingfish meant hereOn an 1890s New York menu this is almost certainly northern kingfish, a small Atlantic drum of a pound or so, sold whole. Modern "kingfish" at the counter is usually king mackerel, a much larger and oilier fish that suits grilling better. Whole black sea bass, porgy, or striped bass fillets stand in well.
- Clear fish brothThe recipe assumes a stockpot already going. Failing that, simmer fish frames and trimmings 20-25 minutes with onion, a bay leaf, parsley stems, a little white wine and salt, then strain. Do not simmer fish bones longer than about half an hour or the broth turns bitter and glue-like.
- The fishkettleA long oval pan with a perforated lifting rack. Any deep roasting pan works if you sling the fish in a doubled length of cheesecloth so you can lift it out intact; "strain the fish carefully" is really an instruction about not breaking it.
- The folded napkinStandard service of the period. The linen blots the poaching liquid so the sauce is not thinned on the plate. A warmed platter and a moment's draining does the same job.
- The saucesA "white sauce" of this period would be a bechamel or veloute, sometimes loosened with a little of the cooking broth; "brown" an espagnole-style reduction. Either should be thin enough to pour from a sauceboat, not to coat a spoon heavily.
- YieldThe recipe gives none. A whole fish of about 1 1/2 to 2 lb would serve two, allowing 6-8 oz of dressed fish per person; northern kingfish often ran smaller, in which case one fish per person.
Boiled fish under a poured sauce was the plainest thing a grand hotel kitchen did, and a la carte diners in the 1890s commonly expected a light fish course between soup and the roast. Kingfish was a cheap, abundant summer fish off Long Island and New Jersey, sold small; its appearance in Oscar Tschirky's book alongside terrapin and canvasback is a reminder that the Waldorf's range ran from the extravagant down to the frankly ordinary, dressed up by the folded napkin and the sauceboat. The service style -- fish on linen, parsley at the edge, sauce passed separately -- follows French hotel practice of the period, and it persisted in hotel dining rooms well into the twentieth century.