No. 1222

Pompano a la Duclair

Lift the fillets from the fish, pare them into half hearts and marinate with salt, pepper, oil and lemon juice; lay them in a sautoir containing clarified butter and cook in the oven. Mince up very finely one medium raw onion, a small bit of garlic and two ounces of celery root; fry them in butter and moisten with fish stock (No. 195), adding a few cloves, let this cook for twenty minutes, then pass it through a sieve and incorporate into it some veloute, reduced to the consistency of a sauce, when ready for serving incorporate therein chopped parsley and a piece of fresh butter. Dress the fillets either in a circle or a straight row, cover over with one-half of the sauce, and serve the other half in a separate sauce-boat.

← No. 1221 Pompano a la Carondelet Pompano, Snapper & Other Fish No. 1223 Pompano a la Macedoine →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a professional brigade that already has fish stock and velouté standing by, so the work here is mostly in the sauce base. The hinge is heat control at the end: once the velouté is reduced and the parsley and raw butter go in, the sauce must not return to a boil or it will break and lose its gloss.

Cross-referencesNo. 195 is Ranhofer's fish stock; any well-made light fish fumet serves. Veloute here means the classic white roux-based sauce, and for a fish dish it is best built on fish stock rather than veal.
SautoirA straight-sided shallow pan, essentially a modern sauté pan or ovenproof skillet. The fillets are basted in clarified butter and finished in the oven rather than browned hard on the stovetop.
Oven heatNo temperature is given. Treat this as a moderately hot oven, 375-400F. Four pompano fillets pared into half-hearts will be done in 8-10 minutes; the flesh should just turn opaque and yield to a fork.
"Half hearts"A garnish cut, not a technique: the fillet is trimmed into a rounded triangle so that pairs can be arranged as a ring or overlapped in a line. Trim thin belly edges away so the pieces cook evenly.
Celery rootTwo ounces minced is a modest amount, well under a cup. Peel it well, as the outer layer is fibrous.
Cloves"A few" means two or three whole cloves for this quantity of sauce. They are strong; more will dominate a delicate fish. They are removed with the solids when the base is passed through the sieve.
MarinationSalt, pepper, oil and lemon juice for 15-20 minutes is plenty. Longer in acid and the surface of the fish begins to firm and turn opaque before it ever sees butter.
If you cannot get pompanoFlorida pompano is seasonal and expensive outside the Gulf and South Atlantic. Firm, sweet, moderately oily fillets of similar thickness work in its place, such as amberjack, black sea bass or a small striped bass.
YieldOne pompano of 2 to 2 1/2 lb gives two fillets, four half-heart portions, and serves two as a main course or four as a fish course. Sending half the sauce to table in a boat, as the recipe directs, is worth keeping.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's summary of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its pompano recipes are a small record of how a Gulf fish reached a Manhattan kitchen. Pompano was landed off Florida and Louisiana and carried north on ice by rail and steamer. The sauce itself is thoroughly French in method rather than Creole: an onion, garlic and celeriac base cooked out in fish stock with clove, sieved, then bound with velouté and finished off the heat with parsley and raw butter. That final monter au beurre is the standard nineteenth-century restaurant move for giving a flour-thickened sauce the shine and softness that flour alone cannot supply, and it is why the recipe insists the butter go in only "when ready for serving."