No. 1226

Pompano a la Soya

Suppress the heads and thin tail parts from three fish weighing three quarters of a pound each; cut the meat into steaks, and sprinkle over with salt. Cut in fine shreds, half a pound of leeks, and a quarter of a pound of celery, the same of carrots: fry them in butter over a slow fire without coloring, then add the pieces of fish, and moisten to their heighth with broth and white wine; season with pepper, parsley, thyme, and bay leaf. When the fish is done, remove from the fire and dress. Lay around the dish mellow potatoes (No. 2799), and thin slices of blackfish a la Orly. (No. 1114). Serve with a sauce-boat of horseradish and cream sauce (No. 478).

← No. 1225 Pompano a la Potentini Pompano, Snapper & Other Fish No. 1227 Pompano a la Toulouse →

For the Modern Kitchen

A gentle braise of pompano steaks on a bed of julienned vegetables, dressed as a full Ranhofer plate with three cross-referenced garnishes. The whole thing hinges on heat control: nothing here should color, and nothing should boil hard.

Scale and yieldThree fish of 12 oz each, headed and tailed, gives roughly 1 1/2 lb of usable steaks — four modest servings, or three if the garnishes are skipped. Pompano is expensive and regional; a firm, mild fish of similar thickness such as black sea bass or striped bass steaks behaves the same way in the pan.
"Suppress"Ranhofer's usual word for remove or trim away. Cut off the head and the thin tail section, then cross-cut the body into steaks about an inch thick, bone in.
"Moisten to their heighth"Add broth and white wine only until the liquid is level with the top of the fish, not covering it. The upper surface steams while the lower braises, which is the point of the shallow liquid.
TimingNo time is given. Inch-thick steaks in barely simmering liquid are done in 8 to 10 minutes, when the flesh releases from the bone. Pompano is fatty but fine-grained and turns cottony if held at a boil.
The vegetable baseHalf a pound leeks, 4 oz celery, 4 oz carrot, all in fine shreds, sweated in butter over low heat without taking on color. Give it 10 to 15 minutes covered before the fish goes in; underdone carrot shreds will still be crunchy when the fish is cooked.
SeasoningThe pepper, parsley, thyme and bay are unmeasured. A few sprigs of parsley, one thyme sprig and one bay leaf are ample for this quantity of liquid; tie them so they can be lifted out before dressing.
The cross-referencesNo. 2799 mellow potatoes and No. 478 horseradish and cream sauce are not reproduced here; blackfish a la Orly (No. 1114) is fish dipped in batter and deep-fried. Any of the three can be dropped without harming the braise, and the horseradish cream is the one worth keeping — it is what gives the plate its edge.
ServingLift the steaks out whole with a slotted spatula, mound the vegetables under them, and reduce the braising liquid briefly if it seems thin before spooning it over.

A Little History

Pompano occupies a long run of entries in Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the record of his cooking at Delmonico's in New York, where the fish arrived by rail and ice from the Gulf and Florida coasts and was treated as a luxury. The title is a puzzle: no soy appears anywhere in the method, and the dish is a plain white-wine braise on shredded vegetables. It may be that such names in the book are personal or place dedications rather than descriptions — patrons, singers and cities are named throughout — and "Soya" could conceivably be a compositor's rendering of a proper name, though that is only a guess. Soy sauce itself was not unknown to nineteenth-century American and English kitchens, where bottled "soy" was sold as a store sauce for fish, so the name may also gesture at a garnish or seasoning that has dropped out of the printed text. Either way the structure is standard high-service practice: a quietly cooked main element ringed with a soft garnish, a fried garnish for contrast, and a sharp sauce sent separately in a boat.