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Trout in Fish Jelly
Clean several small trout and arrange them with their tails in their mouths. Put in a fish-kettle with some water a bay leaf, a peeled and sliced onion, a moderate quantity of spices, salt, pepper and a little vinegar. Boil the water for some minutes, then remove it from the fire. When the liquor is cool, put in the fish, and place it over the fire until on the point of boiling; then move it to the side and let it simmer until the fish is done. When cooked, drain the fish carefully, and baste them occasionally with clear fish jelly until they are well coated. When the fish and jelly are quite cold, trim them neatly, lay them on a dish over which has been spread a folded napkin or an ornamental dish-paper, garnish them with small croutons of jelly and bunches of neatly-selected fresh parsley, and serve.
Cold Boiled Mackerel with Green Mayonnaise Sauce.
Free some cold boiled mackerel from skin and bones, flake the flesh with two forks, and pile the flakes onto a dish. Prepare a thick mayonnaise sauce, and mix it with plenty of chopped parsley previously scalded. Pour the sauce over the mackerel, garnish it with sprigs of parsley and fennel, and young crayfish, placing one on the mackerel, and serve.
Two cold fish dishes from the Waldorf's larder, both built on the same principle: the fish is poached gently, cooled completely, then dressed. The hinge is the jelly — it must be applied at the moment it is syrupy but not set, or it will slide off in sheets.
- Fish jellyThe recipe gives no method; the term means a clarified fish stock (trout trimmings, aromatics, egg-white raft) set to a glaze. For a modern version, roughly 1 tablespoon powdered gelatin per 2 cups of stock gives a coating consistency, more if you want firm croutons to cut. A stock built on bones and heads would have carried some gelatin of its own; filleted fish gives less, so added gelatin is usually needed.
- Glazing temperatureChill the fish thoroughly first, then baste with jelly cooled to about 70F, when it coats a spoon and drags slightly. Warm jelly runs off; set jelly clumps. Build two or three thin coats, chilling between each.
- Fish-kettleA long lidded pan with a perforated lifting plate. A roasting pan with a rack, or a wide sauté pan, does the job; the point is that the fish sit in one layer and can be lifted out without breaking.
- Cool liquor, cooked twiceThe court bouillon is boiled to draw out the aromatics, then cooled before the fish go in, which helps keep the skin from splitting. Do not let it boil again. Small trout take only a few minutes at a bare shiver; cooks aiming for a moist result pull them at 130-135F at the thickest point, though standard food-safety guidance for fish is 145F, and this dish is served cold rather than reheated.
- "A moderate quantity of spices"Left unspecified in the original. A few peppercorns, two or three cloves and a blade of mace for 2 quarts of water is in keeping with period court bouillons. Vinegar: about 2 tablespoons per quart, enough to firm the flesh without curing it.
- Tails in their mouthsThe curled presentation later known as en colere (a term the recipe itself does not use, and one more often applied to fried trout). Secure the tail in the mouth with a wooden pick or a loop of kitchen twine while the fish are raw and pliable, and leave the fastening in until after the jelly has set.
- The mackerelScald the parsley 10 seconds and squeeze it dry before chopping, or it will bleed water into the mayonnaise. A thick mayonnaise here means one made with a higher proportion of oil, stiff enough to hold a ridge.
- Crayfish garnish"Young crayfish" were cooked whole and shell-on, used for color. Cooked shell-on shrimp read the same way on the plate if crayfish are not to hand.
- Serving and holdingYield depends entirely on how many trout you poach; the original gives no number. Both dishes are unheated after glazing, so keep them refrigerated until service and return leftovers promptly -- jellied fish left standing at room temperature is the classic buffet mistake.
Cold glazed fish under aspic was a fixture of the late nineteenth-century buffet, where the kitchen's skill was measured by how clear the jelly ran and how neatly the croutons were cut. Oscar Tschirky, maître d'hôtel at the Waldorf from 1893, compiled this book in 1896 out of the working repertoire of a hotel that fed New York society at supper hours running well past midnight — dishes that could be finished hours ahead and held on ice were not a luxury but a necessity. The trout arranged en colère, tail in mouth, is a French garde-manger convention: the name is usually explained as the fish appearing angry, biting itself, though the phrase is old enough that the explanation is traditional rather than documented. The mackerel recipe following it shows the same larder logic in plainer dress — yesterday's boiled fish, flaked and rescued by a green mayonnaise.