No. 1159

Frostfish or Whiting, Cherbourg Style

Tacaud ou Merlan a la Mode de Cherbourg

Have a medium sized frostfish or whiting; butter a sautoir, sprinkle it over with chopped up mushrooms, and lay the fish on top with parsley, thyme, and bay leaf; moisten with oyster liquor, cover and boil; when the fish is cooked drain off the stock and reduce. Dress the fish in the center of a hot dish and when the stock is reduced to half, thicken it with kneaded butter (No. 579); strain through a tammy, and surround the fish with blanched oysters, pouring the sauce over all. Put in the oven for a few minutes; when ready to serve, sprinkle over chopped parsley.

← No. 1158 Flounders, Provencal Style Cod, Haddock & Halibut No. 1160 Frostfish or Whiting, Fried →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a professional brigade with a stockpot and a numbered reference system at hand. The dish itself is simple: a whole small fish braised in oyster liquor, the liquor turned into its own sauce.

The hinge: the oystersThey are added blanched, then the whole dish goes back into the oven "for a few minutes." Blanching means dropping them into their own hot liquor only until the edges ruffle, roughly 30 seconds; the recipe gives no oven temperature, and the stage should be short, purely to glaze the sauce. Oysters cooked twice at length turn to erasers.
"Cover and boil"Read this as a covered braise at a bare simmer. A medium whiting takes 8-12 minutes depending on thickness; a hard boil will tear the flesh off the bone before the liquor has flavored anything.
SautoirA straight-sided shallow pan, not a deep saucepan and not a sloped skillet. Any lidded pan that holds the fish flat in a single layer with an inch of headroom works; a small roasting pan with foil is fine since the dish finishes in the oven anyway.
Frostfish, tacaud, merlanRanhofer is covering two fish at once. Merlan is European whiting; tacaud is pouting or bib, a close relative. "Frostfish" in nineteenth-century American usage generally meant the Atlantic tomcod, a small inshore cod caught in cold weather, though the name was also applied to silver hake in some markets. Any lean white fish of a pound or so, whole and on the bone, gives the same result.
Oyster liquorThe strained liquid from shucked oysters, and the only liquid in the dish. A dozen oysters yield well under a cup, so top it up with fish stock or dry white wine rather than water, and taste before reducing: bottled or very briny liquor can turn the finished sauce too salty once it is cut by half.
Kneaded butter (No. 579)Beurre manié, butter and flour worked to a paste; the usual modern formula is equal weights, though Ranhofer's own proportions are at his No. 579. Whisk it into the reduced liquor a small piece at a time off the boil, then bring it back briefly to cook out the flour.
TammyA worsted straining cloth, wrung out by two people in the old kitchens. A fine chinois or a sieve lined with damp muslin does the same job.
YieldOne medium whole fish serves two, or one as a substantial course. Scale the mushrooms, herbs and oysters with the number of fish rather than the pan size.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after some three decades as chef at Delmonico's, and its fish entries read like an inventory of what a New York market could supply dressed in the French forms he had trained in. This one is a regional label: Cherbourg sits on the Cotentin peninsula in Normandy, a port associated with both whiting and oysters. The Americanization is visible in the title, where Ranhofer glosses tacaud ou merlan as "frostfish or whiting" for a clientele that would have known the fish under the local name. The technique braise the fish in a flavored liquid, reduce that liquid, bind it with kneaded butter and return it to the fish is the standard nineteenth-century French treatment for whole fish, and something of it can still be recognized in the modern vin blanc sauces.