No. 1311

Whitefish a la Gerhardi

Lavaret a la Gerhardi

Split a whitefish in two along the spinal bone; remove this, then season. Lay the fish on a buttered dish, moisten with white wine, add chopped up onions, then let cook to reduce the liquid to the consistency of a half-glaze; mix into it a Hollandaise sauce (No. 477). Dress the fish and surround it with blanched oysters, mushrooms and shrimp tails; pour two-thirds of the sauce over, and serve the remainder in a sauce-boat.

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For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Ranhofer writes for a brigade that already knows the house Hollandaise and can judge a reduction by eye. The recipe is sound, but almost every quantity is left to the cook.

The hinge: never boil the finished sauceThe wine-and-onion reduction is folded into Hollandaise, and Hollandaise splits above roughly 160-170F. Cool the reduction slightly, whisk it in off the heat, and hold the sauce warm rather than hot.
Lavaret and whitefishLavaret is the Alpine lake whitefish, a Coregonus; the American translation substitutes Great Lakes whitefish. Any firm freshwater fish of 2-3 lb works, and a whole boned trout or char behaves the same way.
Splitting the fishThis is a butterfly: cut down along the backbone from the top, open the fish flat, and lift out the spine and rib bones, leaving head and tail if you like the presentation. A fishmonger will do it if asked for the fish boned but whole.
The buttered dish and the heatThe "dish" is a shallow gratin dish, buttered so the skin does not stick. Ranhofer does not say how it is to be cooked or at what heat; a moderate oven is the usual modern reading, cooking until the flesh is just opaque at the thickest point.
Wine and onion, unmeasuredEnough white wine to come partway up the dish, about a cup for a 3 lb fish, with a tablespoon or two of finely chopped onion. Dry and unoaked; a heavy wine dominates once reduced.
Half-glaze consistencyReduce the pan liquid until it is syrupy and coats a spoon lightly, a few tablespoons at most. Do this in a small saucepan after lifting the fish out, not around the fish, or it will overcook.
Blanched oystersBlanching here means seconds, not minutes: drop shucked oysters into their own hot liquor only until the edges ruffle, about 30 seconds. Anything longer and they tighten into rubber.
Mushrooms and shrimp tailsTurned button mushrooms cooked in butter with lemon were standard in French restaurant kitchens of this kind; sliced or quartered cremini are fine. "Shrimp tails" means the peeled tail meat of small cooked shrimp, warmed through in the garnish rather than cooked again.
YieldA single 2-3 lb fish with the garnish serves four as a main course. Figure about a cup and a half of Hollandaise, two-thirds poured over and the rest sent to table separately.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some thirty years running the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and it is full of dishes titled for patrons, singers and financiers whose names meant something to the dining room and nothing now; Gerhardi is presumably one of these, though the name has not been identified. The construction is pure French service technique applied to an American fish: a wine braise reduced to a glaze, mounted into an emulsified sauce, and dressed with a garnish of shellfish and mushrooms in the manner of a sauce normande. Whitefish from the Great Lakes reached eastern restaurants in quantity as refrigerated rail transport spread in the 1870s and 1880s, and Ranhofer treats it much as a Paris kitchen would have treated the lavaret of Lake Bourget or Lake Geneva; the French heading keeps the European name.