No. 1096

Black Bass Aiguillettes with Oyster Crabs

Aiguillettes de Bass Noir aux Crabes d'Huitres

Pare twelve fillets of black bass free of skin, shaping into aiguillettes; season with salt and pepper, then put them into a sautoir, and moisten with fish stock (No. 195) and the oyster crab broth; cook in a slow oven, basting them frequently while they are cooking, then drain off the liquid and reduce it with the same quantity of veloute sauce (No. 415). Just when prepared to serve, incorporate into it a good sized piece of butter, then strain through a tammy. Put the oyster crabs into a sautoir with a little white wine, set it on the fire, and at the first boil drain them well. Dress the fish in two straight rows on a long dish; set the oyster crabs between these two rows, and cover the whole with half of the sauce, serving the other half separately.

← No. 1095 Black Bass a la Narragansett Bass, Blackfish & Bluefish No. 1097 Black Bass with Sweet Peppers →

For the Modern Kitchen

Charles Ranhofer writes for a brigade that already has stock, velouté in the kitchen, so the numbered cross-references carry most of the work. Two things decide the dish: the fish must not be cooked past the point where the flakes separate, and the oyster crabs get only the moment of first boil.

AiguillettesLong, narrow strips cut from the fillet. The recipe calls for twelve fillets pared and shaped this way; it gives no weight and no number of servings.
SautoirA straight-sided saut tpan, wide enough to hold the strips in a single layer. Anything shallow and ovenproof will do; the point is that the liquid should come only partway up the fish.
A slow ovenRanhofer gives no temperature; a slow oven is conventionally read as somewhere around 300F. The fish is moistened with stock and basted as it cooks; take it out when it turns opaque and just begins to flake.
Oyster crabsPinnotheres ostreum, the pea-sized soft crabs that live inside living oysters. They were a New York delicacy in Ranhofer's day and are now sold only occasionally, by oyster shuckers who save them. Without them the dish loses both its garnish and its broth; small cooked shrimp are a substitute in texture only.
Oyster crab brothThe recipe assumes you already have broth from the crabs. Oyster liquor saved when shucking, strained of grit, is the nearest stand-in; the recipe does not specify how much of either liquid to use.
The sauceReduce the cooking liquid, then reduce it further with an equal quantity of veloute, and incorporate a good-sized piece of butter just before serving, as Ranhofer directs. Once the butter is in, do not let the sauce boil.
TammyA fine woollen straining cloth. A chinois lined with muslin, or a fine mesh sieve pressed with a ladle, gives the same result.
The crabs themselvesWhite wine, one boil, drain, exactly as written. Longer cooking will toughen them, which defeats the reason they are on the plate.
ServiceTwo rows of fish with the crabs down the centre, half the sauce napped over, half in a sauceboat. The dish is meant to be long and narrow; a platter rather than a plate.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is one of the best guides we have to what a fashionable American kitchen cooked when it was working in French. Oyster crabs are the local note here: tiny commensal crabs that live inside oysters, they were a genuine New York luxury in the second half of the nineteenth century, sold by the shucking houses, served crisp-fried by the plateful or, as here, folded into a fish garnish. Black bass fills the role that sole or turbot would in Paris, cut into aiguillettes and treated to a velout inished with butter. The combination of a strictly classical technique with two ingredients drawn from the waters off Manhattan is the whole argument of Ranhofer's book in miniature.