Home › Fish › Broiled White Fish
Broiled White Fish
Clean, split down the back, and let stand in salted water for several hours; wipe dry, and place on a well-greased gridiron over hot coals, sprinkling with salt and pepper. Put flesh side down at first, and when nicely browned, turn carefully on the other. Cook for twenty or thirty minutes, or until nicely browned on both sides. -Mrs. H. Colwell, Chicago, Ill.
A Great Lakes whitefish, split and grilled over coals. Everything here still works except the cooking time, which belongs to a much cooler fire than most people build today.
- The timing is the hingeTwenty to thirty minutes over hot coals will dry a split whitefish out. A butterflied fish of 2-3 lb wants roughly 6-8 minutes flesh side down and 4-6 minutes on the skin; many cooks pull it at about 130-135F at the thickest part, though 145F is the recommended safe temperature. The recipe gives no detail about the size of the gridiron or its height above the fire, so the discrepancy may simply reflect a cooler, more spread-out bed of embers than a modern kettle grill provides.
- The salted water is a brineThe salted water -- The recipe gives no proportion and no stated purpose; a soak of this kind acts as a brine. Several hours is more than most cooks would want today: an hour in water salted to about 1/4 cup salt per quart firms the flesh and seasons it through. Wipe dry afterwards as directed, since a wet surface will steam rather than brown.
- GridironA hinged wire grill basket is the closest modern equivalent and the easiest way to turn a split fish without losing half of it. Failing that, grease the grate hard and heat it fully before the fish goes on.
- Split down the backIn modern terms this is close to butterflying: cut along either side of the backbone from the tail end, remove the spine, and open the fish flat with the skin intact. (Period practice sometimes left the backbone in.) Ask a fishmonger to do it if you would rather not; a whole boned side works too, though it cooks faster still.
- Flesh side firstWorth following. The exposed flesh takes colour quickly on a clean hot grate, and finishing on the skin lets the skin crisp while shielding the meat from direct heat.
- Hot coalsAim for a medium-hot fire you can hold a hand over for three or four seconds at grate height. A gas grill at high, or a broiler about 4 inches from the element, will do the same work.
- SubstitutesLake whitefish is still sold around the Great Lakes, fresh as well as smoked. Lake trout, Arctic char, mackerel or a split branzino all behave similarly under the same treatment.
- YieldA 2-3 lb whitefish serves three or four. The recipe itself finishes with nothing but salt and pepper; butter, lemon and a little parsley are a common accompaniment and suit it well.
Whitefish was the great commercial catch of the upper Great Lakes through the nineteenth century, shipped salted by the barrel and eaten fresh in the lake cities, which is why a Chicago contributor to a cookbook offers it without any explanation of what kind of fish is meant. Broiling over coals was one common treatment for such a fish in a house with a range, and the gridiron kept it out of the smoke, though the recipe's own "well-greased gridiron" shows that fat was in fact added. The Dixie Cook-Book, published in Atlanta with a Southern orientation though its text derives from Buckeye Cookery, carried signed contributions from women in various places, among them Mrs. H. Colwell of Chicago.