No. 1208

Perch, Polish Style

Perche a la Polonaise

A species of bony fish "Thoracic," characterized by a very powerful prickly crest placed on the back. River perch have very white, firm and fine meat of an exquisite savor; it is one of the best fresh water fishes.

Select medium sized perch, clean and scale; boil them in salted water for two or three minutes until the skin detaches easily, then take from the fire and carefully lift off the skin. Roll the fish in beaten eggs into which has been mixed a little melted butter, salt, and pepper, then in bread-crumbs, and lay them on a baking tin; brown in a hot oven to finish cooking, and when a good color, serve on a tomato sauce (No. 549), adding a little grated horseradish to it.

← No. 1207 Maskinonge a la Providence Eels, Pike, Carp & Sturgeon No. 1209 Perch, Sauce Valois—Boiled →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's method is a two-stage cook: a brief scald to loosen the skin, then a breaded roast to finish. The scald is the hinge, and the only part that goes wrong easily.

The two-or-three-minute boilThat first dip is only to release the skin, not to cook the fish. Perch skin is tough and heavily scaled, and a short scald lifts it cleanly; left too long, the flesh begins to set and is liable to tear away with the skin. Salt the water as directed and pull the fish as soon as the skin lifts easily, which is the test Ranhofer himself gives.
"A hot oven"The book gives no temperature; in nineteenth-century usage a hot oven is usually read as something in the region of 425-450F. The fish is already partly cooked and the crumb coating needs to colour fast; at a lower heat the breading tends to dry out before it browns.
DonenessSmall whole perch need only six to ten minutes at that heat. Cook to 145F at the thickest part, or until the flesh at the backbone is opaque and pulls free.
Tomato sauce No. 549The sauce is a separate numbered entry in the book rather than a recipe given here, so you will need to look it up or substitute. Any well-reduced, sieved tomato sauce with body will stand in; it should coat the plate rather than pool.
HorseradishGrate fresh root and stir it into the sauce off the heat at the last moment. Heat destroys the volatile compounds that give it its bite, and jarred horseradish in vinegar will thin the sauce and sharpen it in a different direction.
The fish itselfEuropean perch and American yellow perch both suit this. Medium means roughly 8–10 inches, one to two per person. Perch are famously spiny along the dorsal ridge and firmly scaled; snip the fins with shears before the scald and the skinning goes faster.
Egg washThe melted butter in the beaten egg is deliberate — it enriches the crumb coat and helps it colour in the dry heat of the oven. Keep the butter just warm so it does not scramble the egg.
YieldThe entry gives none. Figure two medium perch per person as a main course, one as a fish course in a longer menu.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer spent over thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is his attempt to set down the whole working repertoire of that kitchen — some 3,500 numbered items cross-referenced to one another, which is why the sauce here is a number rather than a recipe. The little natural-history preamble about "Thoracic" fishes reflects the Linnaean classification then standard in cookbooks and market guides — Linnaeus divided fishes by ventral fin position into Apodes, Jugulares, Thoracici and Abdominales — where cooks were expected to know their fish by anatomy as well as by taste. "A la Polonaise" in French kitchen usage most often signals a garnish of chopped egg, browned crumbs and parsley; here the crumb coating alone appears to carry the name, and the pairing of a freshwater fish with horseradish points toward the Central and Eastern European table, where grated horseradish is the standard accompaniment to boiled and baked river fish. River perch was genuinely prized in the nineteenth century — Ranhofer's "one of the best fresh water fishes" was a common judgement.