No. 1176

Herrings, Fresh, Paupiettes with Milts

Harengs Frais, Paupiettes aux Laitances

Suppress the skin, head, and thin tail parts of the herrings; open them to remove the main back bone, then remove the two fillets and pare them oblong; cover the side the skin was taken from with a layer of fish quenelle forcemeat (No. 90), with cooked fine herbs (No. 385), and roll them into cork-shaped pieces; range these in buttered tin rings any size that may be convenient, having them the shape of a bung; set them on a dish, pour over a little butter and court bouillon (No. 38), and cook in a moderate oven for fifteen to twenty minutes. When done dress them in the center of a dish and surround with small cases of milts prepared as follows: Fry a shallot in butter with chopped parsley and fresh mushrooms likewise chopped; season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice; let get cold, then mix in with these the same quantity of fish forcemeat (No. 90). Cover the bottom and sides of some previously oiled paper cases stiffened in the oven, fill the centers with herring milts, and cover with the remainder of the preparation; on each one place a channeled mushroom head (No. 118), and then cook in a slow oven; cover the paupiettes with crawfish butter sauce (No. 573), and serve with a sauce-boat of the same.

← No. 1175 Herrings, Fresh, Mustard or Thickened Maitre Shad, Herring & Mackerel No. 1177 Herrings, Salt, with Mashed Potatoes →

For the Modern Kitchen

A two-part dish from Ranhofer's numbered system: rolled herring fillets stuffed with fish forcemeat, ringed by paper cases of soft roe. The cross-references are to other numbered recipes in the same book, so the whole thing has to be assembled from parts before you begin.

Milts are soft roe"Laitances" are the sperm sacs of male herring, sold as soft roe. They are seasonal and usually special-order; a fishmonger who cleans whole herring can save them. If you cannot get them, fill the cases with the forcemeat alone rather than substituting hard (egg) roe, which has a wholly different texture.
What the forcemeat isNo. 90 is a fish quenelle forcemeat: raw white fish pounded with panada and butter or cream, seasoned, then sieved. A food processor does the pounding in seconds provided everything stays cold. It must be stiff enough to hold a roll without a wrapper.
Cooked fine herbsNo. 385 is essentially a duxelles-style mixture of shallot, mushroom and parsley cooked down in butter until dry. Any moisture left in it will loosen the forcemeat and the paupiettes will split in the oven.
Oven temperaturesThe book says only "moderate" for the paupiettes and "slow" for the paper cases; these are usually read today as roughly 350F and roughly 300F, but Ranhofer gives no numbers. Fifteen to twenty minutes suits cork-sized rolls; the fillets and their raw forcemeat should be cooked through to at least 145F internal, and no further, since herring dries out fast.
The rings and the "bung" shapeA bung is a barrel stopper, so the rolls are short, straight-sided cylinders. Buttered ring moulds, cut lengths of parchment tied around each roll, or straight-sided metal cutters set on a buttered tray all work.
Court bouillon here is a moistener, not a poaching bathNo. 38 is an aromatic court bouillon of vegetables and seasonings, acidulated with wine or vinegar. Only a little goes into the dish, with the butter, to keep the rolls from drying; do not submerge them or the forcemeat will leach.
Paper casesOiled paper cases "stiffened in the oven" are pre-baked parchment or paper cups. Modern parchment muffin liners or small ramekins lined with parchment do the same job, and a muffin tin keeps them upright.
Channeled mushroom headNo. 118 is a mushroom cap fluted with a knife tip in a spiral -- decoration, cooked briefly in butter and lemon so it stays pale.
Crawfish butter sauceNo. 573 depends on crawfish butter, made by pounding the cooked shells with butter and straining. Shrimp shells give a close result. This is the flavor that carries the dish; without it the whole thing is plain.
YieldTwo fillets per herring, one paupiette per fillet. Reckon six to eight herring for a course for six, with one roe case per person.

A Little History

This is No. 1176 in Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium the chef -- born at Saint-Denis, near Paris, into a family of chefs of Alsatian descent -- assembled from three decades at Delmonico's in New York. The cross-referencing -- forcemeat at No. 90, court bouillon at No. 38, crawfish butter at No. 573 -- is the book's whole method: it is written for a brigade that already has those preparations standing, not for a single cook working from scratch. The dish itself is classic French treatment applied to a cheap fish. Herring was among the least expensive things in the market; boning the fillets, rolling them on quenelle forcemeat and finishing with crawfish butter turns pennyworth material into a restaurant course, which was precisely the sort of transformation that made a Delmonico's menu impressive. Paupiette, sometimes traced to the same root as the Italian polpetta and sometimes to Old French poupe or Latin pulpa, has long meant a thin slice of meat or fish rolled around a stuffing.