No. 1258

Sheepshead a la Bourguignonne

Mince four ounces of onions, and fry in two ounces of butter, moistening with a bottle of Burgundy wine; season, and add a garnished bunch of parsley, then continue to cook for fifteen minutes. Remove the fillets from a fine sheepshead, suppress the skin, and cut the fish into half inch thick slices, pare them half heart-shaped; these slices should each weigh four ounces; lay them one beside the other in a baking dish and pour over the strained wine. Cook the fish in a moderate oven for fifteen minutes, basting occasionally; when done drain the fish on a dish, strain the stock through a sieve, skim off its fat, and thicken it with a few bits of kneaded butter (No. 579), then pour it over the slices of sheepshead and serve.

← No. 1257 Sheepshead a la Bechamel Pompano, Snapper & Other Fish No. 1259 Sheepshead a la Buena Vista →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's language is Delmonico's kitchen shorthand. Translated, this is fish poached in the oven in reduced red wine, the cooking liquid finished with beurre manié.

Moderate ovenRoughly 350-375F. The dish is uncovered and basted, so it is really oven-poaching rather than baking.
The timing to watchHalf-inch slices of a lean white fish are done in 8 to 10 minutes at 350F, not fifteen. Pull them when the flesh just loses its translucency; the sauce is finished separately, so there is no reason to hold the fish in the heat.
"Suppress the skin"A literal rendering of the French supprimer — simply remove and discard it. "Pare half heart-shaped" means trim each portion into a rounded, tapering piece so they sit neatly side by side.
A garnished bunch of parsleyA bouquet garni: parsley stems tied with thyme and a bay leaf. Remove it before the wine goes over the fish.
A bottle of BurgundyAbout 750 ml by modern reckoning, though nineteenth-century bottle sizes varied, and the recipe means red. Use something dry and light-bodied; the whole bottle cooks down with the onions for fifteen minutes, so the flavour concentrates and any harshness will concentrate with it.
Kneaded butterRanhofer's No. 579 is what French cooks call beurre manie, literally "kneaded butter": soft butter worked to a paste with flour, conventionally in about equal weights, and whisked into the hot liquid in small pieces. Start with about 1 tablespoon butter to 1 tablespoon flour for the reduced sauce from one bottle of wine, and let it come to a bare simmer to cook out the raw flour.
SheepsheadTwo different fish went by this name in the period: the Atlantic sheepshead (Archosargus probatocephalus), still sold in the Gulf states, and freshwater drum. Either way, any firm lean white fish in thick fillets works — drum, black sea bass, grouper, snapper.
YieldFour-ounce portions, one or two per person; the number of slices will depend on the size of the fish. Four ounces of onion is roughly one medium onion.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous record of his decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, where French technique was applied methodically to whatever the American market supplied. À la bourguignonne signals the Burgundian habit of cooking in red wine — the same logic as boeuf bourguignon, minus the bacon and mushrooms — and applying it to fish was standard classical practice, not an oddity: matelotes of freshwater fish in red wine were long established in France. What is American here is the fish. Sheepshead was a common and well-regarded market fish on the Atlantic coast in the nineteenth century, and it later faded from fashionable menus while never quite disappearing from Southern kitchens.