No. 1126

Buffalo Fish, Cream Sauce

Buffalo Fish a la Creme

Cut off the head and thin parts of the tails from three Buffalo fish; scale, drain, suppress the gills, wash and dry, raise the fillets and lay them in a buttered sautoir, moistening with a white wine mirepoix stock (No. 419), and let cook for fifteen to twenty minutes; drain off the fish and strain the stock. Prepare a good bechamel with cream (No. 411) and add to it a part of the strained fish broth; strain the whole and put it on to reduce, incorporating gradually into it some mushroom broth and fresh cream. Pour this sauce over the fish fillets and let them simmer in it for fifteen minutes on a very slow fire. Dress the fish and pour over a cream sauce (No. 454).

← No. 1125 Buffalo Fish a la Bavaroise Pompano, Snapper & Other Fish No. 1127 Butter-Fish, Marinated and Fried →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with stocks and mother sauces already standing on the stove; the recipe is really an assembly of four components. The main thing to fix is the cooking time, which double-cooks the fish.

The hinge: don't cook it twiceTwenty minutes of poaching followed by fifteen more in the sauce will reduce lean white fillets to cotton. Poach the fillets 6-8 minutes until they are just opaque at the thickest point, then hold them in the finished sauce over the barest heat for a few minutes to marry, not to cook.
Buffalo fish and what to use insteadBuffalo fish (Ictiobus) is a large freshwater sucker, common in Mississippi valley markets in the 1890s and still sold in parts of the South, but rarely seen elsewhere. Carp, drum, catfish or any firm lean white fillet works; three fish give six fillets, though Ranhofer states no yield and these fish vary greatly in size, so how many it feeds depends on the fish.
SautoirA straight-sided shallow pan, wider than deep. Any lidded saute pan or skillet that holds the fillets in one layer without crowding is correct.
White wine mirepoix stock (No. 419)White wine mirepoix stock (No. 419) — Ranhofer's mirepoix is broadly of the usual type: diced root vegetables and onion with a little lean ham or bacon sweated in butter, moistened with white wine and stock and aromatised with herbs. A court-bouillon of dry white wine, fish stock or water and similar aromatics gives much the same result.
Bechamel with cream (No. 411)Bechamel with cream (No. 411) — a white roux slackened with scalded milk and cream, simmered and strained. Since it is about to be let down with fish broth, mushroom broth and more cream, start it on the thick side.
Mushroom brothMushroom broth — not a modern stock cube. In period usage this is the strained liquor from cooking button mushrooms in water, usually with lemon and butter, and it is there for depth and a faint acidity. A concentrated infusion of dried mushrooms, strained through cloth, stands in reasonably.
Two sauces, deliberatelyTwo sauces, deliberately — the fillets are finished in the reduced bechamel, then masked on the dish with a separate cream sauce (No. 454). If that is more than you want, reserve a portion of the reduced sauce before the fish goes in, thin it with cream, and use it for napping.
Reduction and saltReduction and salt — the strained fish broth reduces further alongside the bechamel, concentrating whatever seasoning it carries. Season only at the end, after the sauce has come to the consistency you want.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894, after a career of roughly three decades at Delmonico's in New York, and the book sets out to show a French kitchen working with American produce. Buffalo fish is a good example: an inland river fish given the full a la creme treatment with a mirepoix au vin blanc, a bechamel and a mushroom essence. Nineteenth-century American markets valued the fish for its size and firm flesh, though it is a bony fish, which may be why Ranhofer raises the fillets before doing anything else. Dishes labelled a la creme in this period generally mean poached in a wine-scented liquor and then finished in a cream-enriched white sauce, a formula the book applies to several other fish in this section with the aromatics changed.