No. 1308

Weakfish a la Brighton

Pare some fillets of weakfish, after suppressing their bones and skin, trim them heart-shaped, lay them in a buttered dish with finely shredded chives, truffles and mushrooms; moisten with white wine and oyster liquor, adding a liberal piece of butter. When the fish is done, strain, reduce the stock with well-seasoned veloute sauce (No. 415), and just when serving stir in some fresh butter, lemon juice and a sufficient quantity of small blanched oysters. Dress the fish, garnish with the oysters and pour the sauce over.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A shallow-braise (Escoffier would call it a filet poché au vin blanc) in which the cooking liquid becomes the sauce. Everything depends on not overcooking the fish or the oysters.

WeakfishAlso called squeteague or sea trout, a mid-Atlantic drum with soft, delicate flesh that flakes fast. If it is not at your counter, use grey sea trout, black bass, or any lean white fillet of similar thickness; skinned fluke or fresh cod loin works.
"Trim them heart-shaped"A presentation cut for individual portions, tapering the tail end of the fillet; the recipe gives no weight, but something in the region of 4 to 5 oz a piece suits a fish course. It is cosmetic. What matters is that the pieces be even in thickness so they cook at the same rate.
Cooking the fishButter a shallow dish, spread the chives, truffle and mushroom over the bottom, lay in the fillets, add wine and oyster liquor, and put the butter on top. The recipe does not say how it is cooked or how hot; a moderate oven, around 350F, with the dish covered, will do it, and 4 to 5 oz fillets need roughly 8 to 12 minutes. They are done when barely opaque at the centre. Weakfish in particular collapses if pushed further.
The oysters"Small blanched oysters" means dropped into their own hot liquor only until the edges ruffle, 30 to 60 seconds; longer cooking turns them to rubber. Reserve the liquor they give up and use it in the braise.
Veloute No. 415Ranhofer's veloute: a blond roux moistened with stock and simmered down; for a fish dish, make it with fish stock. A modern equivalent is 2 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp flour cooked without colouring, whisked with 2 cups fish fumet and reduced by a third. Have about a cup ready before you start the fish.
Reducing and finishingStrain the braising liquid off the fish, boil it down hard to a few spoonfuls of syrupy glaze, then whisk in the veloute. The final butter and lemon go in off the heat, swirled not boiled, or the sauce breaks and dulls.
TrufflesFresh black truffle is optional in practice. A teaspoon of chopped preserved truffle, or simply doubling the mushrooms and adding a few drops of truffle juice from the tin, gives the intended perfume without the outlay. Truffle oil does not behave the same way in a butter sauce.
YieldThe recipe gives no quantities. A workable reading is one fillet per person with sauce and six to eight oysters each: four fillets, a cup of wine, a cup of oyster liquor and about a cup of veloute serves four as a fish course.

A Little History

Weakfish was one of the great cheap fishes of the nineteenth-century Atlantic coast, hauled in quantity from Long Island Sound and the New Jersey shore and sold in New York markets through the summer; the name refers not to flavour but to the tender mouth that tears loose from a hook. Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's for over thirty years, took a local market fish and gave it the full French white-wine braise, though what the name Brighton points to is unclear own as easily the English resort as any American one, given the English turbot recipe alongside it. The pairing of a lean white fish with oysters and their liquor may well have been common in American kitchens of the period, when oysters were abundant and cheap enough to be treated as a seasoning rather than a luxury.