No. 1265

Smelts a l'Alexandria

Eperlans a l'Alexandrie

A genus of fish of the Malacapterigian order of the salmon family, being five to six inches long. This fish is remarkable for its silvery coloring, and the delicacy of its meat, which has a slight fragrance of the violet or cucumber.

Smelts a l'Alexandria.—For twelve smelts mince finely four medium leeks, and fry them in butter. Cut the heads and tails from the smelts, and fry the fish with the leeks; besprinkle with flour and moisten with tomato gravy, adding whole peppers and a garnished bunch of parsley containing bay leaf and garlic. When the fish is done, dress and reduce the sauce, thickening it with egg-yolks and butter, then strain it through a tammy (Fig. 88); garnish round the dish with the smelt's milts or roe fried in butter, cover with a part of the sauce and serve the remainder in a sauce-boat.

← No. 1264 Skate, with Hazelnut or Black Butter Shad, Herring & Mackerel No. 1266 Smelts a la Gondoliere →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a professional brigade with stock and sauces already on hand; the method is sound but assumes several things a home cook has to supply.

Tomato gravyNot ketchup and not plain tomato sauce. In Ranhofer's usage "gravy" generally means a reduced stock, so the closest modern stand-in is a well-reduced tomato-enriched stock or a light demi-glace with tomato puree; roughly a cup will serve for twelve smelts.
The hinge: thickening with yolksThe sauce is finished as a liaison. Reduce it, pull it off the heat, temper the yolks with a little hot sauce, return the mixture and hold it below a simmer. Above roughly 180F the yolks scramble and no amount of straining recovers it.
A tammyA tammy cloth is a fine woollen straining cloth wrung between two people. A chinois or a fine sieve lined with a double thickness of muslin does the same job.
SmeltsRainbow smelt of five to six inches are still sold whole, often frozen, in Northeastern and Great Lakes markets. They may or may not come gutted; if not, the belly is slit and drawn, and the small bones are eaten with the fish.
Milts and roeThe milt is the male's soft roe. Modern smelts are rarely sold with either intact, and the garnish can simply be omitted, or replaced with a second handful of smelts cut into fingers and fried.
LeeksFour medium leeks to twelve small fish is a great deal of allium by modern taste. Use the white and pale green only, sweat them slowly in butter until soft without colour, and consider halving the quantity.
Garnished bunch of parsleyThis is a bouquet garni: parsley stems tied around a bay leaf with a crushed garlic clove. Tie it with string so it lifts out cleanly before the sauce is strained.
Yield and timingTwelve smelts serve three or four as a first course. The fish need only four to six minutes in the sauce; smelts are thin and overcook into cotton.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the smelt chapter reflects how common the fish then was on American tables: cheap, seasonal, netted in enormous quantities from the Hudson, the Great Lakes and the New England rivers, and served by the dozen. The introductory note on the violet or cucumber fragrance is a stock observation in nineteenth-century fish writing, and it is accurate enough that fresh smelt is still described that way. The dish name follows the house habit of attaching place names to garnishes and sauces, a French convention Ranhofer carried to New York. The book's arrangement by course, with the fish chapter subdivided by family, and his terse professional shorthand, mark it as a working reference for cooks who already knew the sauce repertoire.