No. 1250

Shad Broiled, Ravigote Butter

Alose Grillee, Beurre Ravigote

The shad is a fish of the Clupeidae family, found in North America and Europe. It is an excellent fish with a toothless mouth, and a large veined head. Select a very fresh shad; split it down the entire back, remove the spinal bone, and season with salt, and place it on a dish with some oil, afterward broil it with the flesh side on the broiler, having a low but well maintained fire; turn it over when a fine color to finish cooking. Dress the fish on a hot dish; besprinkle with ravigote butter (No. 583), partially melted to the consistency of thick cream, and serve.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's method is a butterflied fish grilled over a slow, steady fire and finished with a compound butter. Two things need translating: what "broiler" meant in a nineteenth-century kitchen, and how to handle a fish as bony as shad.

"Broil" means grillRanhofer broils on a gridiron over the fire, so the heat comes from below: the fish is laid flesh side on the broiler over a "low but well maintained fire." A modern gas or charcoal grill, or a stovetop grill pan, follows the original. An overhead oven broiler will work but reverses the sequence, so start flesh side up. "Low but well maintained fire" suggests a moderate, steady bed of coals rather than a searing one.
Splitting down the backButterflying from the spine side rather than the belly keeps the two fillets joined at the belly skin and lets the fish lie flat. Ask a fishmonger to do it if you have not boned a shad before; the rib structure is unusually complex.
The bones remainRemoving the spinal bone does not make shad boneless. It carries rows of free-floating intramuscular bones that no filleting removes cleanly, which is why boned shad has always been a specialist's job. Serve it warning guests, or seek out a fishmonger who sells properly boned shad.
Ravigote butterNo. 583 is a compound butter: softened butter worked with blanched, finely chopped green herbs and seasoning (check No. 583 for Ranhofer's exact list). "Partially melted to the consistency of thick cream" means warmed just to the point of flowing, not clarified and split. Warm it off the heat over a bowl of hot water.
DonenessThe recipe gives no times. A butterflied shad of about 3 lb needs only a few minutes a side -- roughly 6-8 minutes flesh side down and 4-5 on the skin, depending on the fire. Shad is fatty and forgiving; many cooks pull it at around 130-135F at the thickest point, though US food-safety guidance for fish is 145F. Carried much further it dries out.
SourcingAmerican shad runs are a fraction of what they were in Ranhofer's day, and several Atlantic states now restrict or prohibit the fishery. Buy from a managed river run in season (late winter to spring) and expect it to be sold whole or as boned fillets, often with roe.
YieldThe recipe gives none. One 3-4 lb shad, split, serves three to four as a main course.

A Little History

Shad was the great democratic fish of the American Atlantic seaboard, running up the Delaware, Hudson, Connecticut and Susquehanna in such numbers each spring that it fed shad-planking suppers, shad bakes and city fish markets alike. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's, gives it a full run of recipes in The Epicurean (1894) precisely because it was both abundant and genuinely fine, and here he dresses a plain grilled fish with a French compound butter — ravigote, from ravigoter, to revive or perk up, a family of green herb preparations that appear in French cookery as a butter, a cold sauce and a warm velouté-based sauce. The pairing is characteristic of his kitchen: an American river fish handled with the technique and vocabulary of Paris. His textbook-style opening note on the Clupeidae family reflects the book's other ambition, to serve as a reference work as much as a collection of recipes.