No. 1270

Smelts in Dauphin a la Hamlin

Eperlans en Dauphin a la Hamlin

Prepare some very thin pancakes; cover each one with a thick layer of pike forcemeat (No. 90), into which raw fine herbs have been mingled; place another thin pancake on top, then pare them into half hearts. Bone some smelts leaving on the head, remove the eyes, replace by a small bit of forcemeat, and a dot of truffle, roll them up with the fillets inside and fill the empty space in the center of each side with some of the same forcemeat; set on top a small fluted mushroom head (No. 118). Cover the half hearts with the forcemeat, and lay a smelt over; place in its mouth a small piece of red lobster cut from one of the claws. Set these on a buttered baking sheet, pour over some butter, and cover with a sheet of buttered paper, then cook them in a slack oven; dress crown-shaped, and serve with a ravigote sauce (No. 531), separately.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is a composed garnish dish from Ranhofer's kitchen brigade, written for cooks who already had forcemeat, fluted mushrooms and ravigote standing by. The cross-referenced numbers do most of the work, so the first task is deciding what to substitute for them.

The cross-referencesNo. 90 is a pike forcemeat, of the pounded-raw-fish quenelle type; a modern pike or pike-perch mousseline made in a processor with egg white and cream does the same job. No. 118 is a mushroom cap turned with a paring knife into shallow curved flutes, purely decorative. No. 531 is a ravigote; the name covers both a cold vinaigrette-style sauce and a warm velouty-based one, and either suits.
"Slack oven"Slack is the coolest working heat in a nineteenth-century range; modern equivalences usually put it somewhere around 250-300F, though the term was never a measured one. That suits the dish: the forcemeat must set without swelling and cracking, and the smelt is thin enough to be done before it dries.
TimingThe original gives none. Boned smelts wrapped around forcemeat and buttered under paper need about 12-15 minutes at 300F — pull them when the forcemeat is firm to a fingertip and reads 145F. Anything approaching half an hour turns the fish cottony.
The pancakesPlain unsweetened crêpes, made as thin as the pan allows. They are structural, not flavour: two of them sandwich the herbed forcemeat, and the assembly is then cut into half-heart shapes with a knife or cutter before being masked with more forcemeat.
"Raw fine herbs"Fines herbes — parsley, chervil, tarragon, chives — chopped fine and folded in uncooked so they keep their green colour through the gentle baking. Do not sweat them first.
Boning smelts head-onSlit along the belly or the back, lift out the spine and ribs with the tail, and keep the head attached. Small smelts are easiest to handle for this. The recipe's forcemeat plug in the eye socket, dotted with truffle, restores a bright eye once cooked.
Buttered paperParchment cut to the sheet and buttered on the underside. It keeps the exposed forcemeat from colouring and holds in steam; foil is heavier and will slump onto the mushroom caps.
Yield and serviceFigure one smelt and one half-heart per person as a fish course, dressed leaning against each other in a ring on a round platter, with the sauce passed in a boat. Truffle and lobster claw are garnish only; a sliver of black olive and a strip of cooked lobster or crayfish tail read the same on the plate.

A Little History

En dauphin seems to describe the shape rather than any place: the boned smelt is rolled and arched, a presentation sometimes likened to the heraldic dolphin, though the derivation is traditional rather than documented. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for most of the three decades before The Epicurean appeared in 1894, filled the book with dishes named for patrons and public figures, and "a la Hamlin" appears to belong to that habit he same order as the Lobster Newberg and countless a la dedications elsewhere in the volume. Smelts were then cheap and abundant on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, sold by the pound in spring runs, which is why a luxury restaurant could afford to bone them one at a time and dress each with truffle and lobster: the labour was the extravagance, not the fish.