No. 1162

Grouper a la Franklyn

A fish of the perch family of the genus Serranus. Raise the two fillets of the fish on each side of the main bone, remove the skin; cut the meat up into bias half inch slices, paring them oval shaped; put into a vessel to season with salt, pepper, thyme, bay leaf, sliced onions, lemon juice and oil; one hour after range these escalops in a sautoir with their marinade; moisten with broth and mushroom liquor and allow the whole to cook slowly. When done strain the stock and reduce half of it with a lean financiere sauce (No. 464). When ready to serve incorporate into it a piece of fresh butter, reduce the rest of the stock to a glaze, glaze the dressed escalops, using a brush for the purpose after adding to it some lobster coral butter (No. 580), pour a little of the sauce around the fish and serve the rest of it separately.

← No. 1161 Frost Fish or Whiting Baked Pompano, Snapper & Other Fish No. 1163 Gudgeons or Whitebait Fried in Butter →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade that already has stock, financière sauce and compound butters standing by; the method itself is straightforward once those are accounted for. The core technique is a shallow braise of marinated fish slices whose cooking liquid is split two ways — half into a sauce, half reduced to a glaze.

The hinge: do not overcook the escalopsHalf-inch slices of grouper are done in roughly four to six minutes in barely simmering liquid, well short of what "cook slowly" suggests to a modern ear. Pull them while the centre is just opaque; they finish firming as they are glazed and dressed.
SautoirA straight-sided shallow pan, wider than deep — a modern sauté pan or a low, broad skillet with a lid. The point is that the escalops sit in a single layer with the marinade coming partway up them, not swimming.
Escalops, pared ovalBias-cut slices trimmed to a neat oval so they cook evenly and plate in an overlapping ring. The trimmings are worth simmering into the moistening broth rather than discarding.
Financière sauce, leanFinanciere sauce, lean -- No. 464 in this book; financiere is conventionally an espagnole- or madeira-based sauce with truffle essence, and "lean" (maigre) should be read as the meatless/fish version, built on fish stock rather than meat glaze. A well-reduced fish veloute finished with Madeira is the practical stand-in.
Lobster coral butterNo. 580 is lobster coral pounded with butter and passed through a sieve; it supplies both the colour and much of the flavour of the glaze. Coral is not easy to source; cooked coral, or a shellfish butter made from shells, gives the tint, though a paler one.
Mushroom liquorThe strained soaking or cooking liquid from mushrooms, a standard by-product in a nineteenth-century kitchen. Liquid from rehydrated dried mushrooms, or the reduced juices from a pan of sautéed ones, does the same work.
GlazeReducing the reserved half of the strained cooking stock until it is syrupy and coats a spoon; brushed on, it gives the fish gloss. Reduce it in a small pan and watch it at the end — glaze goes from correct to bitter quickly.
YieldThe recipe states no quantity or yield; a fish of a few pounds would give escalops for roughly four to six, depending on where the dish falls in the meal. Serve the extra sauce in a boat, as directed.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894, after roughly three decades at Delmonico's in New York (served in two stints, from the 1860s), and the book's fish chapters are a record of what the American market could deliver to a French kitchen. Grouper, snapper and pompano came up from Florida and the Gulf by rail and ice - fish with little standing in the Paris repertoire, here fitted into it, with a genus name (Serranus) supplied as if the reader might not recognise the fish. The treatment is entirely classical: marinate, braise shallow, split the cooking liquid between a sauce and a glaze, finish with a coral butter for colour. Dishes in this book named after a person are generally taken to commemorate a patron or a particular dinner rather than a chef, though Ranhofer rarely says which, and no attribution for a Franklyn is given here.