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Boiled Marinaded Mackerel
Put enough weak broth in a fishkettle fitted with a drainer to cover a dozen mackerel, add three small onions, a bunch of sweet herbs, half a teacupful of vinegar, eight cloves with pepper and salt to taste, boil all together for one hour; then put them in the fish and cook. When it is done take the fish out carefully on the drainer, being careful not to break them and put one by one on a hot dish. Strain the liquor in which they were cooked, put in some parsley and hard boiled eggs to thicken it, mix in some white gravy sauce, turn it into a sauceboat and serve with the fish.
A classic court bouillon poach scaled for a hotel kitchen: the aromatic liquid is built first, then the fish goes in for a short time. The proportions transfer down easily, but the cooking method needs a firm hand.
- Never let it boil with the fish inThe hour-long boil applies to the broth alone, to draw out the onion, herbs and cloves. Once the mackerel go in the liquid should sit at a bare shiver, around 175-180F; a rolling boil tears the skin and squeezes the flesh dry.
- Cooking timeThe original gives none because the cook was expected to know. Whole mackerel of about 3/4 lb need roughly 8-12 minutes at a bare simmer, fillets 4-6. The flesh should just part at the backbone.
- ScaleA dozen mackerel is a service quantity. For four fish, use about 2 quarts of light broth, one small onion, a bouquet garni, 2 tablespoons vinegar and 3 cloves.
- Half a teacupfulA Victorian teacup is variously reckoned at 4 to 6 fl oz, so this is somewhere between 2 and 3 fl oz of vinegar (about 1/4 to 3/8 cup) for a dozen fish. Cider or white wine vinegar suits better than harsh distilled.
- Weak brothA light fish or veal stock, or stock cut half and half with water. Salted water with the aromatics works if you have no stock; the vinegar and cloves carry most of the flavour.
- Sweet herbsPeriod shorthand for a bundle of parsley stalks, thyme and bay, tied so it can be lifted out. Not a reference to sweetness.
- Fishkettle and drainerThe drainer is the perforated tray that lets you lift a dozen fish out intact. A roasting pan with a wire rack, or a wide pot with the fish laid on a doubled strip of cheesecloth, does the same job.
- White gravy sauceProbably a velout ot-type white sauce: white roux slackened with the strained poaching liquor or a light stock. The recipe puts the hard-boiled egg and parsley into the strained liquor to thicken it and then mixes in the white sauce, so keep the whole thing loose enough to still pour.
- YieldOne whole mackerel per person as a main course, half a fish as a first course. The dish is also good cold, the fish left in the strained liquor overnight.
Mackerel spoils faster than almost any fish sold in the market, which is why so much of its old cookery involves vinegar: soused, pickled, or as here poached in an acidulated court bouillon that both firmed the flesh and masked any hint of age. The word "marinaded" in this title appears to carry its older sense, meaning steeped in a salted and soured liquid rather than dressed beforehand in oil and herbs. The scale of the dish -- a dozen fish at once, and a fishkettle with its lift-out drainer -- points to a large professional kitchen rather than a domestic one. The finish of chopped hard-boiled egg and parsley folded into a white sauce is a very old European treatment for boiled fish, and survives in the egg sauce still served with poached cod and salmon.