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Pike with Aspic Jelly
Thoroughly clean a pike, stuff it with some rather stiff fish forcemeat, sew it up, wrap it in a cloth and boil it in court bouillon and white wine. When cooked, leave the fish in its cooking liquor till cold, then take it out, remove the cloth, put it belly downwards on the drainer of the fish-kettle and leave it for some time to make sure of its being thoroughly drained. Trim the skin off the thickest part of its body, cut the flesh into slices, which put back again in shape, then glaze the fish with aspic jelly. Put the pike on an oval dish, propping it up on both sides with pieces of bread; surround it first with aspic jelly, then with hard-boiled eggs and small croutons of aspic jelly, arranged alternately. Garnish four attelette skewers, each with one truffle and one quenelle and one with a truffle and two crayfish, one of which should be smaller than the other and placed next the truffle. Stick the crayfish skewer in the middle of the pike's back and place the others two on each side. The dish containing the fish should be placed on an ornamented stand.
This is a cold buffet centrepiece from the era when a fish was as much architecture as dinner. The cooking is simple; everything difficult about it is in the setting and the presentation.
- Do not boil itDespite the word "boil," the court bouillon should never go above a bare shiver, around 170-180F. A pike held at a rolling boil splits its skin and the forcemeat curdles out through the seam. Figure roughly 10 minutes per inch of thickness at the fish's deepest point, then let it cool in the liquor as directed.
- Court bouillonWater with white wine, sliced onion and carrot, parsley stems, bay, peppercorns and salt, simmered 20 minutes before the fish goes in. Make it the day before if that suits.
- The clothA length of muslin or cheesecloth, floured or oiled, wrapped around the fish and tied at head and tail. It is what lets you lift a poached whole fish out in one piece and keeps a stuffed, sewn fish from opening. Note that the recipe uses both: the cloth for the cooking, the fish-kettle drainer afterwards for draining.
- Fish forcemeatA mousseline: raw white fish pounded or processed with egg white and cream, seasoned, stiff enough to hold a shape on a spoon. "Rather stiff" matters here because it has to set inside the cavity without slumping. Chill the bowl and work quickly so the cream does not break.
- Aspic jellyOriginally a clarified fish or veal stock set with calf's foot and cleared with egg white. Powdered or leaf gelatine in strong, clarified fish stock does the same work, at roughly 1.5-2 percent gelatine by weight for a glaze that clings and more, in the region of 2.5-3 percent, for jelly firm enough to chop into croutons. Glaze the fish when the aspic is cool and syrupy, not warm, and give it three or four thin coats rather than one thick one, chilling between each.
- Pike itselfNorthern pike is bony in a way few modern cooks expect, with a row of Y-shaped intermuscular bones along the loin, and it can taste muddy in warm water. A farmed pike-perch, walleye or even a whole salmon trout of 3-4 lb behaves the same way in this preparation and will not fight you at the table.
- AttelettesDecorative silver skewers, called hâtelets in French kitchens, used purely for display and pulled out before serving. Plain bamboo skewers work if the point is the food rather than the silver. The quenelles are small poached dumplings of the same forcemeat used for the stuffing; poach a few extra spoonfuls when you make it.
- The bread propsCrustless bread blocks were used to hold a fish upright on the platter and were never eaten. Anything that holds the shape and stays hidden under the aspic and garnish will do.
- Keep it coldAn aspic-glazed fish is a cold dish that should be assembled chilled and returned to the refrigerator until the last moment. Do not let it stand out on the sideboard for an afternoon, whatever the old service books say. The recipe gives no weight; a whole pike served this way will feed a buffet table rather than a small dinner.
Cold decorated fish in aspic belongs to the grande cuisine that Oscar Tschirky presided over at the Waldorf and later the Waldorf-Astoria around the turn of the twentieth century, when a hotel banquet was judged partly on how many mirrored platters and glazed centrepieces came out of the kitchen. The vocabulary here is straight out of the French repertoire the American luxury hotels imported wholesale: court bouillon, forcemeat, quenelle, attelette, all terms long established in French kitchens well before this date. Pike was the classic choice for such work in France because its lean, sticky flesh makes superb forcemeat, and the same quality underlies the Lyonnais quenelles de brochet. That the finished dish is described as sitting on an "ornamented stand," propped with bread and crowned with skewered crayfish, tells you it was meant to be looked at before it was eaten, which is a fair description of a great deal of hotel cooking in 1896.