No. 1207

Maskinonge a la Providence

Stud slices of the fish with anchovy fillets; plunge these slices in boiling water to which a little vinegar has been added, for two minutes, take them out and lay them in a saucepan; cover the entire fish with a veloute sauce (No. 415), with white wine and mushroom parings, adding a garnished bunch of parsley; let simmer until the fish is cooked, then drain off the liquid; reduce and thicken it with egg-yolks, butter and cream; pass it through a tammy, and incorporate into it a piece more butter and chopped/parsley. Dress the slices of fish, covering over with a third part of the sauce, and serve the remainder of the sauce separately.

← No. 1206 Mullets with d'Antin Sauce Pompano, Snapper & Other Fish No. 1208 Perch, Polish Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

A Delmonico's treatment of a large freshwater fish, built on a fish velouté finished with an egg-yolk liaison. The liaison is the hinge: once the yolks go in the sauce must never boil.

The fishMaskinonge is muskellunge, the largest North American pike, a sport fish that is not sold commercially and is catch-and-release in much of its range. Thick cross-cut steaks of northern pike, walleye, halibut or cod behave the same way here; allow a steak of about 6 oz per person.
Studding with anchovyMake shallow incisions in the flesh with a thin knife and press in strips of oil-packed anchovy fillet, or use a larding needle. Use fewer than instinct suggests; the anchovy is a seasoning running through the fish, not a filling, and salt-packed anchovies should be rinsed first.
The vinegar blanchTwo minutes in boiling acidulated water sets the surface protein so the slices hold together and keep their whiteness through the long simmer. Do not extend it, and do not use the blanching water in the sauce.
Sauce No. 415The book's velouté; for a fish dish the moistening would be a fish-based stock rather than the chicken-based sauce the word usually suggests now, but check No. 415 for what the book actually specifies. Mushroom parings are the trimmings and peelings, which give the flavor without clouding the sauce; a handful of chopped mushroom stems does the same job.
"Let simmer until the fish is cooked"Keep the liquid at a bare tremble, around 170-180F, and count on 8-12 minutes for a steak an inch thick rather than the longer cooking the era assumed. The fish is done when a skewer meets no resistance at the bone.
Thickening with yolksReduce the strained cooking liquid first, then temper the yolks with a little hot sauce before returning them off the heat. Above roughly 180F the yolks scramble and the sauce breaks; hold it warm in a bain-marie and never let it return to a boil.
TammyA tammy is a fine worsted cloth through which sauce was wrung by two people twisting the ends. A fine-mesh chinois pressed with a ladle, or a doubled layer of muslin, gives the same smoothness.
ServingCoat the fish with about a third of the sauce and send the rest in a warm sauceboat, as written. Boiled potatoes or a plain rice pilaf would suit; the sauce is rich enough that nothing else is needed.

A Little History

Maskinonge is the muskellunge, its name generally traced to the Ojibwe maashkinoozhe, reaching English through Canadian French as masquinongé, though the literal sense of the Ojibwe word is disputed. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York and author of The Epicurean (1894), drew on a Great Lakes and St. Lawrence fishery that supplied the city's restaurants with freshwater fish now familiar only to anglers, and he gave them the same classical French dressings he applied to turbot or sole. The name "à la Providence" belongs to the nineteenth-century habit of attaching a place or a patron to a garnish and sauce combination; what it referred to in this case is not recorded. Larding lean white fish with anchovy to season it from within appears in professional cookery of the period.