No. 1104

Striped Bass a la Long Branch

Bass Raye a la Long Branch

After the bass has been dressed and cleaned remove the fillets and meats adhering to the skin, trimming them into half inch thick slices shaped like half-hearts, three and a half inches by two; place on a baking sheet, cover with buttered paper, and poach them in butter and a court bouillon (No. 38); let get slightly cold under the pressure of a weight; drain and pare them again. Prepare a good essence (No. 388), with the heads and bones of the fish; skim off the fat and strain, then slowly incorporate into it one quart of reduced veloute (No. 415); add a little oyster liquor and mushroom essence (No. 392), and when the sauce is properly reduced and of a sufficient succulence, thicken it with egg-yolks and finish with a piece of crawfish butter (No. 573); when partly cold cover the fillets with a thick layer of this sauce, and set them aside to get cold. Dip each piece of fish into beaten eggs, bread-crumbs, and fry of a good color in clarified butter, drain and dress on folded napkins.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is a croquette in disguise: cooked bass fillets are masked in a thick fish velouté, chilled until the coating is firm, then breaded and fried. Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a stockpot already going, so the numbered cross-references are the real work.

The hingeThe sauce must be stiff enough to set solid on the fish and the pieces must be refrigerated until genuinely cold and firm, ideally an hour or more. A soft or barely cooled coating will slump off in the pan and the egg-and-crumb shell will burst.
The cross-referencesNo. 38 is a court bouillon; No. 388 a fish essence, here made from the heads and bones of the fish; No. 415 velout e stock rather than milk; No. 392 mushroom essence, the reduced liquor from cooking mushrooms; No. 573 crawfish butter, shells pounded with butter and strained. The exact formulas are in those numbered entries and should be read there.
Crawfish butterMade by pounding cooked crawfish shells with butter, warming gently and straining through a fine sieve; the proportions are given at No. 573. Shrimp or lobster shells can be substituted and are far easier to obtain.
Scale the sauce downA quart of reduced velout everal times what is needed for the eight or ten half-heart pieces one bass will yield; a cup or so of finished sauce is ample for a single fish, and the other sauce quantities can be cut in proportion.
Egg yolksTemper the yolks with a little hot sauce, return them off the heat, and keep the pan below a simmer. Once yolks are in, boiling will curdle the sauce and it will never set cleanly on the fish.
Poaching and pressingButter and court bouillon on a baking sheet under buttered paper is a shallow poach; the recipe specifies neither heat nor timing, so cook the half-inch slices gently only until just done. The weight while cooling compacts the flakes so the pieces can be pared to a clean shape and handled without falling apart.
FryingClarified butter is used because whole butter's milk solids burn; hold it around 350F. Peanut or another neutral oil behaves the same way if you would rather not commit that much butter.
Serving"Dress on folded napkins" is the period presentation for fried food, the napkin absorbing fat as paper would. Serve with lemon or a spoonful of the reserved sauce loosened with a little fish stock.

A Little History

Long Branch, New Jersey, was one of the great American seaside resorts of the second half of the nineteenth century — Ulysses S. Grant summered there. Charles Ranhofer, chef of Delmonico's in New York, cooked for exactly the clientele who kept cottages there, and The Epicurean (1894) is full of dishes named for resorts, patrons and public figures in the same manner. The treatment itself is thoroughly French: masking cold cooked fish in a stiff, yolk-bound sauce and frying it in crumbs is the same logic as a croquette or a cromesquis, and it let a kitchen prepare the pieces hours ahead and finish them to order. That the bones and heads become the essence, and the oyster liquor and mushroom essence are already standing by, tells you the recipe assumes a full brigade rather than a household cook.