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Broiled Shad
Remove the scales from a large shad, clean it well, cut off the fins and score it on both sides. Place the fish in a deep dish with some chopped shallots, parsley, oil and salt and let it macerate for one hour. Grease a gridiron well, warm it, and lay on the fish; broil it over a clear fire, turning it occasionally and basting it with oil. The shad will require from thirty to forty-five minutes to cook, according to its size. When ready, place the fish on a folded napkin on a hot dish garnished with parsley and serve with a sauceboatful of maitre d'hotel sauce.
A plain grill treatment for a fish that is mostly a memory in American kitchens. The marinade and the sauce are straightforward; the timing and the bones are where this needs attention.
- Sourcing shadAmerican shad runs on the Atlantic coast are much reduced, and harvest is closed or tightly restricted in several states, including New York's Hudson and most of the Chesapeake, where Maryland and Virginia have long-standing moratoria. Limited legal fisheries remain in some Atlantic waters, notably parts of the Delaware, and the fish is abundant on the West Coast, where it is an introduced species. Buy from a fishmonger who can tell you the source; if none is available, bluefish or mackerel takes this treatment well.
- The bones are the point of the scoringThe bones and the scoring -- Shad has rows of floating intramuscular bones that no amount of cooking dissolves. Scoring a whole fish before broiling was routine for even cooking, and it is often said to cut those bones into short lengths so they are less troublesome; the recipe itself gives no reason. A boned shad fillet from a skilled cutter is the alternative.
- Thirty to forty-five minutes is far too longTiming -- Thirty to forty-five minutes suits a whole large fish over a fire that has burned down, which is what the recipe describes. If you cook a split shad an inch thick instead, it is done in 10 to 15 minutes over medium coals, or under a broiler at about 6 inches. Take it off at 135F at the thickest point; shad is fatty but goes dry and cottony past that.
- Gridiron and greaseThe greased, preheated gridiron is not a period quirk. Shad flesh is soft and sticks badly. Heat the grate fully, oil it just before the fish goes on, and turn once rather than "occasionally" to avoid tearing it.
- Macerate, not marinate longAn hour in oil, shallot and parsley is enough and no more is wanted; there is no acid here to firm the flesh, and longer sitting only makes it looser. Salt at the start is fine and helps it hold together.
- Maitre d'hotel sauceThe usual meaning is butter worked with chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper. The recipe asks for a sauceboatful, so it is served melted or nearly so rather than in cold slices; keep it warm but do not let it break over direct heat.
- YieldA shad of 4 to 6 lb whole serves four generously. If the fish comes with roe, broil the roe sacs separately and briefly; they toughen faster than the flesh.
Shad was once the great spring fish of the Eastern seaboard, running up the Hudson, the Delaware and the Connecticut in numbers that made it cheap enough to be considered a poor man's food before city restaurants took it up. By the time Oscar Tschirky was running the dining rooms of the Waldorf in the 1890s, planked and broiled shad and shad roe were fixtures of the spring menu in New York. The fish's reputation rests on its fat, which is why it broils so well and why the recipe asks for nothing but oil and a compound butter, and its drawback is the bone structure that gave rise to the scoring here and to the long-lived folk practice of very slow baking said to soften the bones. Dam building and overfishing cut the runs drastically over the twentieth century, which is why a dish that needed no explanation to Oscar's readers now needs a paragraph.