No. 1136

Fresh Codfish, a la Duxelle, Baked

Morue Fraiche ou Cabillaud a la Duxelle au Gratin

Fill the empty gill holes and the inside of the belly with a pike forcemeat (No. 90), into which has been mixed a quarter of the same quantity of cooked fine herbs (No. 385); season the fish with salt, pepper, and chopped up shallots, and moisten lightly with Madeira wine; cover over with an espagnole sauce (No. 414), dredge bread-raspings on top, and pour melted butter over all, then place the fish in a moderate oven to brown, and cook for about forty-five minutes according to its size. When the fish is thoroughly done, squeeze over the juice of a lemon, and bestrew the surface with chopped parsley.

← No. 1135 Codfish Cod, Haddock & Halibut No. 1137 Fresh Codfish, Norwegian Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes you already have a pike forcemeat, a cooked fines-herbes duxelles, a bread-raspings jar and a pot of espagnole standing by. Strip those cross-references out and the dish is a whole cod, stuffed, sauced, crumbed and roasted.

The hinge: don't overcook the fishForty-five minutes suits a whole fish of five or six pounds, not a two-pound piece. Judge by the flesh at the backbone rather than the clock; cod flakes and turns opaque around 130-140F and goes cottony past that.
Moderate ovenRoughly 350-375F. Ranhofer wants browning as much as cooking, so if the espagnole and crumbs are pale at the end, a minute or two under the broiler does more good than extra time at heat.
Pike forcemeatNo. 90 is Ranhofer's pounded pike quenelle forcemeat; consult that entry for its exact composition rather than assuming. Pike is a nuisance to source; any lean white fish, pollock, haddock or more cod, worked cold in a processor with egg white and cream, is a workable stand-in. Perhaps a pound of forcemeat for a large fish.
Cooked fine herbs, i.e. the duxellesNo. 385 is Ranhofer's cooked fine herbs, in essence finely chopped mushrooms with shallot and parsley cooked down in butter until dry. It should be genuinely dry before it meets the forcemeat, or the stuffing will weep and slacken in the oven. The proportion given is a quarter of the same quantity, without specifying weight or volume.
Gill holesThe instruction assumes a fish delivered whole with the head on and the gills pulled out, leaving two cavities behind the cheeks. A modern gutted, headed fish gives you only the belly; put all the forcemeat there and skewer or tie the cavity closed.
EspagnoleThe classic brown sauce built on brown roux, brown stock and mirepoix, reduced for hours. A well-reduced brown veal or chicken stock, lightly thickened, stands in without doing violence to the dish. Spread it thinly; it is a glaze here, not a pool.
Bread-raspingsThe scraped crust of stale baked bread, sieved fine, drier and darker than fresh crumbs. Dried breadcrumbs toasted a shade in the oven are the nearest thing.
MadeiraA dry or medium Sercial or Verdelho, not the salted cooking Madeira sold in supermarkets. It is used to moisten only, perhaps a quarter cup over the fish.
YieldA whole cod of five to six pounds with stuffing serves six to eight as a main course.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years running the kitchens of Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows how the book works: nearly every line is a pointer to another numbered preparation, because the restaurant kitchen it describes had forcemeats, duxelles and espagnole standing ready every service. A la duxelle takes its name from the chopped mushroom-and-shallot preparation generally traced to the household of the Marquis d'Uxelles, whose cook La Varenne published in the seventeenth century; au gratin here means only the crumbed, buttered, browned surface, not the baking dish. Dressing a plain fish in a brown sauce with Madeira looks odd to a modern eye trained to pair cod with white wine and butter, but it is thoroughly of its period, when espagnole and its derivatives were the default finish for anything meant to look serious on a menu, fish included.