No. 1111

Striped Bass, Shrimp Sauce with Fried Scallops

Bass Raye Sauce Crevette aux Petoncles Frits

Lift the fillets from a three pound bass, pare them neatly, removing the skin, and lay them on a buttered dish, seasoning with salt and pepper; moisten with white wine and court bouillon, (No. 39), and let cook in a slow oven without attaining a color, then dress on a hot dish. Roll some scallops in flour, fry them in very hot fat without browning, drain and put them into a frying pan containing a piece of butter; color slightly, besprinkle with salt and chopped parsley. Cover the fish, with a shrimp sauce (No. 540), lay the scallops around and send some of the sauce to the table in a separate sauce-boat.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a kitchen that already has court bouillon and shrimp sauce standing by; the two cross-references are the real work here. Everything else is a gentle oven-poach and a quick sauté.

The hinge: gentle heat"Let cook in a slow oven without attaining a color" means the fillets should never brown or bubble. Ranhofer gives no temperature; a slow oven of the period is usually read as somewhere around 300F, and pulling the fish at about 130F internal -- roughly 10-14 minutes for fillets off a 3 lb fish -- suits the instruction. Once the flesh flakes freely it is past the point Ranhofer wanted.
Court bouillon (No. 39)Court bouillons of this type are water and white wine with sliced carrot and onion, parsley, thyme and bay, salt and peppercorns, simmered and strained; check No. 39 for Ranhofer's exact list. Any well-seasoned aromatic broth of that kind will do, and you need only enough, with the wine, to moisten the dish rather than submerge the fish.
Shrimp sauce (No. 540)In The Epicurean this is broadly a white fish sauce finished with shrimp butter (shells pounded with butter and strained); consult No. 540 for the exact base and garnish. A modern equivalent: fish fumet thickened with a white roux, enriched with cream, then whisked with shrimp butter off the heat. Make it before the fish goes in, since it holds and the fish does not.
"Petoncles"Small scallops, not the large sea scallop cut in rounds. Bay scallops are the right substitute, or the smallest sea scallops you can buy. Trim off the tough side muscle.
The double cooking of the scallopsFlouring and frying "without browning" sets the surface; the butter pan then colors them. Both stages together should take under two minutes, or you get erasers. If it is easier, flour them and sauté once in butter over high heat, 30-45 seconds a side.
Bass RayeA francophone rendering of bar rayé, striped bass. Wild striped bass is tightly regulated in the United States and commercial sale of wild fish is restricted in a number of states, so much of what is sold is farmed hybrid striped bass, which runs 1.5-3 lb whole and works exactly as described.
YieldA 3 lb bass gives roughly a pound to a pound and a quarter of trimmed, skinless fillet: two generous or three modest portions. Figure 4-6 oz of scallops for the garnish and about a cup of sauce, half of it in the boat.

A Little History

This is No. 1111 of the 3,500-odd numbered entries in Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the record of some thirty years as chef of Delmonico's in New York. The structure of the dish is pure French service of the period: a plainly poached fillet, a compound sauce built on shellfish butter, and a fried garnish laid around the edge rather than under or over the fish, with more sauce sent separately so the crisp element stays crisp. Striped bass was a local luxury for Delmonico's. The heading, French name first with an English gloss, follows the book's practice of heading essentially every recipe bilingually.