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Fried Trout
Choose small trout, wash and clean them well, and cut off their fins. Season one or two tablespoonfuls of flour with salt and pepper, and roll the fish well in it. Put a large piece of lard or clarified fat in a stewpan, and place it over the fire; when the blue smoke rises put in the fish and fry them until nicely browned. When cooked drain them on a sheet of kitchen paper in front of a clear fire, than place them on a hot dish over which has been spread an ornamental dish-paper, or a folded napkin, garnish with fried parsley and serve.
Trout, Hussar Style Scale and clean a trout, draw it by the gills, and stuff it with butter mixed up with finely-chopped sweet herbs. In stuffing great care must be exercised to see that the skin is not broken. Rub the fish well with warmed butter or oil, sprinkle it over well with pepper and salt, put it on a gridiron over a clear fire, and broil it; or it may be put in a dish in the oven and baked. Place it on a dish when done and serve with poivrade sauce, in a sauceboat.
Two short trout preparations from the Waldorf's fish station, written for a coal range and a cook who already knew what a stewpan was. The hinge in both is heat management: fat hot enough to set the flour crust instantly, and fish pulled the moment it flakes.
- "When the blue smoke rises"This is the old signal that the fat has reached frying temperature, roughly 350-375F for lard or clarified butter. Judge it with a thermometer rather than by smoke, since modern refined fats give less visual warning before they scorch.
- StewpanIn this period a stewpan is a straight-sided pan of moderate depth, not a casserole dish. A heavy skillet with an inch of fat does the same job.
- FatLard or clarified fat is specified because whole butter burns at frying heat. Clarified butter, lard, or a neutral high-smoke oil all work; the flavour difference is real but the technique is unchanged.
- Timing"Nicely browned" on a small trout of 8 to 10 ounces means about 3 to 4 minutes a side. Fish is done at 145F at the thickest point and the flesh should just part from the backbone; longer and the thin belly dries out.
- Draining before the fireThe open range gave radiant heat that dried the crust without further cooking. A rack in a 200F oven for a few minutes accomplishes the same thing better than paper alone, which traps steam underneath.
- Fried parsleyWhole sprigs, thoroughly dry, dropped into the same hot fat for 15 to 20 seconds until crisp and still green. Wet parsley will spit violently, so blot it well first.
- "Draw it by the gills"The second recipe wants the fish gutted through the gill opening so the belly stays closed and the butter stuffing cannot leak. It takes a thin blade and some patience; a conventional belly cut works if you skewer or tie the cavity shut.
- Broiling and bakingA gridiron over a clear fire means a grill over glowing coals, not a modern overhead broiler. In the oven, 400F for 15 to 20 minutes suits a whole trout of about a pound.
- Poivrade sauceA brown sauce built on mirepoix with vinegar or wine and a heavy hit of crushed peppercorns added late, strained before serving. It is not part of this recipe and must be made separately.
- YieldOne small trout per person for the fried version, and a single larger fish serves one or two Hussar Style, depending on the rest of the menu.
Oscar Tschirky, who ran the Waldorf's dining rooms from its opening in 1893 and published this collection in 1896, wrote at a time when brook trout was prized as a luxury restaurant fish and served whole with the head on. The flour-and-hot-fat treatment here is the plainest thing the kitchen could do to a good fish, and the elaborate presentation, ornamental dish-paper, folded napkin, fried parsley, is doing most of the work of making it a Waldorf dish. "Hussar style" is one of a large family of nineteenth-century garnish names taken from military usage; it carried no fixed formula, and the classical versions are not consistently peppery or paprika-forward. Poivrade, from poivre, is the sharp peppered brown sauce of the classical French repertoire, and its appearance beside a stuffed broiled trout marks how thoroughly the American grand hotel kitchen ran on French sauce work.