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Trout with Mayonnaise
Cut off the heads and thin tail parts from half a dozen or so medium-sized trout, clean them inwardly through the gills, also wiping the insides and taking care not to remove the slime from the skin. Have in readiness a saucepan with sufficient court-bouillon mixed with a little claret to cover the fish, plunge them in when the liquor is boiling, cover over the pan, remove it to the side of the fire and allow the fish to cool in the liquor. Take them out, drain, wipe well, place them on the ice for thirty minutes or so and glaze with half-set aspic jelly. Fill an ornamental border mould with aspic jelly, turn it out onto a dish when set, place a small quantity of chopped jelly in the center and serve with mayonnaise sauce in a sauceboat.
A cold poached fish dish built for a buffet table, where the aspic does as much work as the trout. The hinge is the poaching liquid: it must be at a rolling boil when the fish goes in, then come off the heat immediately so the trout cooks gently as the liquor cools.
- Court-bouillonAn aromatic poaching liquid, not stock: water with a good splash of vinegar or white wine, sliced onion, carrot, bay, thyme, parsley stalks, peppercorns and salt, simmered 20 minutes before use. Make it in advance so it is well flavoured, and use enough to cover the fish by an inch.
- The claretClaret means dry red Bordeaux, or any dry red. It is used in small quantity here, for colour as much as flavour.
- Do not wash off the slimeThis is the one instruction cooks skip and regret. The natural coating on the skin reacts with the acid in the liquor to produce the classic blue tint, so buy the freshest trout you can, handle them as little as possible, and clean them through the gills rather than slitting the belly.
- Cooking and donenessThe trout cook in the residual heat of the liquor; the recipe leaves them in it until cold. Check the thickest part reads 145F before you chill them; if the pan was small or the fish large, the residual heat may not be enough and they should go back to a bare simmer for a few minutes.
- Aspic jellyClarified fish or veal stock set with gelatine. For glazing you want it syrupy and just beginning to thicken, applied in two or three thin coats with a spoon or brush, chilling between coats. Modern powdered or leaf gelatine at about 1 oz to 2 pints of liquid gives a jelly firm enough to unmould.
- The border mouldA ring mould. Rinse it with cold water, fill with aspic, chill until fully set, then dip the base in warm water for a few seconds to turn it out. The chopped jelly in the centre is simply set aspic cut up with a wet knife.
- YieldHalf a dozen trout serves six as a first course or lunch dish. Everything can be finished a day ahead and kept covered in the refrigerator; the mayonnaise goes in a sauceboat at the last moment.
Cold fish under aspic was the standard grammar of the hotel buffet, when a dish was expected to hold its shape and shine for an hour on a sideboard. The technique here is a variant of truite au bleu, generally traced to Alpine and French freshwater cookery, where trout taken live from a tank were poached in acidulated liquid so quickly that the skin turned blue and curled; the instruction not to wipe away the slime is the surviving trace of that practice, since the coating is what produces the colour. Poaching trout in red wine and setting cold fish within an ornamental aspic border are both established French practice.