No. 1119

Bluefish Deviled

Bluefish a la Diable

Have well cleansed, washed and dried bluefish; split them open on the belly side without separating the parts, dredge over salt and pepper and besprinkle with oil; broil them till half done then cover over with diluted mustard, strew bread-crumbs on top and finish broiling the fish over a slow fire. Serve the following sauce in a sauce-boat: Chop up two shallots; place them in a saucepan with a gill of vinegar, a crushed and chopped clove of garlic, whole black peppers, green peppers, bay leaf, espagnole sauce (No. 414), and gravy. Let simmer, despumate and strain through a tammy (No. 159), finishing with a little chopped parsley when serving.

← No. 1118 Bluefish, Havanese Style Bass, Blackfish & Bluefish No. 1120 Bluefish in Papers →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a coal broiler and a kitchen with espagnole already made; both are easily worked around, but the sauce is the real project here, not the fish.

The hinge: crumb it lateThe mustard and crumbs go on only after the fish is half cooked, and the fire is then dropped low. Put them on at the start and the crumbs blacken long before an oily fish like bluefish is done through.
Broiling translatedUnder a gas or electric broiler, start the split fish skin-side down about 4 inches from the element, then move it to 6-8 inches once mustard and crumbs are on. On a charcoal grill, begin over the hot bed and finish over the cool edge, which is what "a slow fire" means.
TimingA split bluefish of 2-3 lb takes roughly 8-12 minutes in total; the recipe gives no times. Bluefish is fatty and forgiving of heat but turns dry and cottony once past about 135F at the thickest part.
A gillHalf a cup, here of vinegar. Wine vinegar rather than distilled.
Espagnole and "gravy"Espagnole (his No. 414) is the brown mother sauce built on a roux and brown veal stock; store-bought or homemade demi-glace stands in for it. "Gravy" in The Epicurean means concentrated roasting juices or reduced brown stock, not a thickened pan gravy. He gives no quantities for either; about a cup of espagnole to a quarter cup of gravy gives a sauce in proportion to the half cup of vinegar.
Green peppersAlongside "whole black peppers," these are probably green peppercorns rather than bell peppers, though the text does not say which is meant.
Despumate and tammyDespumate means to skim the scum and fat that rise during simmering. A tammy was a woven worsted straining cloth; a fine chinois or a sieve lined with damp cheesecloth does the same work.
Diluted mustardNineteenth-century kitchens mixed mustard powder with water or vinegar to a spreadable paste. Dijon thinned slightly with vinegar is the closest ready-made equivalent; it should coat, not run off.
YieldOne split fish of 2-3 lb serves two, generously three, with the sauce passed separately as directed.

A Little History

Bluefish was a cheap, abundant Atlantic fish in Charles Ranhofer's New York, and The Epicurean (1894) gives it a range of treatments to dress it up for a restaurant menu. A la diable, "deviled," is a French idiom for anything mustard-sharpened, crumbed and browned, and it suits a strong-flavored oily fish: mustard and vinegar cut the richness, crumbs give a crust where a coating of flour would go greasy. The pattern is the same one behind deviled kidneys and deviled crab, and the sauce here is essentially a shallot-and-vinegar reduction let down with espagnole, which, though the name is conventionally tied to mustard and pepper heat, is served apart in a sauce-boat.