No. 1137

Fresh Codfish, Norwegian Style

Morue Fraiche a la Norvegienne

Raise the fillets from a very fresh codfish; cut and pare them into half heart-shaped pieces, season with salt, pepper, parsley, lemon juice, and chopped shallots. Lay them in a straight row on a baking dish with their seasoning, sprinkle liberally with bread-crumbs, and on top a little parmesan cheese, pour over melted butter, and cook the fish in a hot oven. Serve a separate sauce-boat of white wine sauce (No. 445), thickened with egg-yolks, and cream, and finished with a little nutmeg.

← No. 1136 Fresh Codfish, a la Duxelle, Baked Cod, Haddock & Halibut No. 1138 Fresh Codfish, Broiled with Bacon or Ham →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

A gratin of cod fillets under buttered crumbs and parmesan, with a yolk-thickened white wine sauce served alongside. Ranhofer assumes you have his sauce numbers to hand and a fishmonger who will hand you a whole cod.

The hinge: the sauce must not boilOnce the egg yolks and cream go into the white wine sauce it can no longer be brought to a boil, or the yolks scramble and the sauce breaks. Bring the sauce to a bare simmer, temper a little into the yolk-and-cream liaison, return it off the heat, and hold it warm without further cooking.
"A hot oven"For Ranhofer this is usually read as somewhere around 425-450F. Fillet pieces of an inch or so take roughly 10-15 minutes; the flakes should just separate at the thickest point (cooks aiming for a firm, fully-cooked interior go to 145F; 130-135F is a softer, less-cooked result). The high heat is there to colour the crumbs before the cod overcooks.
Half heart-shaped piecesA shaping instruction, not a technique. Cut the fillet crosswise into portions and pare each into a rounded wedge, flat on one side, so the pieces sit in an even row and cook at the same rate. Uniform thickness matters more than the shape.
Sauce No. 445The referenced white wine sauce is a fish-stock-and-white-wine sauce in the velouté family, here further enriched with yolks and cream and grated nutmeg as this recipe directs. Any good fish velouté stands in.
Proportions the text omitsRanhofer gives no quantities. For four portions figure about 1 1/2 lb of cod fillet, 2 tablespoons chopped shallot, a small handful of parsley, the juice of half a lemon, about 3/4 cup fine dry crumbs, 2 tablespoons grated parmesan and 4 tablespoons melted butter.
Lemon and salt timingSeason and dress the fish shortly before it goes into the oven. Left to sit in salt and lemon juice for an hour, the surface of the cod cures and firms, and the crumbs go soggy against the drawn-out moisture.
Cod todayAtlantic cod is thinner-filleted and often previously frozen compared with the market fish of the 1890s. Pacific cod, haddock or hake behave the same way here; pat the fillets thoroughly dry so the crumb crust browns rather than steams.
Yield and serviceOne trimmed piece per person as a fish course, two as a main. Serve straight from the baking dish with the sauce passed separately, as written, so the crumbs stay crisp.

A Little History

The recipe comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium he assembled from three decades as chef of Delmonico's in New York. The "Norwegian style" label reflects a common nineteenth-century French kitchen habit of attaching a nationality to a dish by way of a single associated ingredient or idea rather than any real regional recipe: Norway was the great cod nation of the North Atlantic, supplying the stockfish trade and, it is often said, iced fresh fish to European markets, so a plainly treated fresh cod took the name. Note that the title insists on fresh cod, which in the 1890s was still worth specifying. The finish is otherwise wholly French: a gratin of crumbs and parmesan under melted butter, and a velouté with a yolk-and-cream liaison, the standard luxury sauce of the period.