No. 308

Fish Soup a la Ponsardin

Potage de Poisson a la Ponsardin

Cut one pound of fillet of bass into slices a quarter of an inch thick, and one inch and a quarter in diameter; fry these in some butter, and set them under a weight; when cold pare them. Take the tails from one pound of shrimps, peel them, and keep the meat aside. Put into a saucepan, one very fresh bass head, also the parings cut from the fillets and the shrimps, add half a pound of stalks or parings of mushrooms, a quarter of a bottleful of white wine, and three quarts of water, also a bunch of parsley, thyme, bay leaf, carrots and minced onions; boil for thirty minutes, then strain. Make a blond roux with quarter of a pound of butter, and quarter of a pound of flour; moisten it with the fish broth, boil, despumate, and thicken it with egg-yolks, cream and lobster butter, with Kari; serve as a garnishing the shrimp tails and the small prepared fillets of bass.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A classic French fish veloute in three stages: a quick shellfish-and-bone broth, a blond roux soup, and an egg-and-cream liaison finished with lobster butter. Ranhofer assumes you know the French kitchen vocabulary, so most of the work of modernizing is translation.

The hinge: the liaisonOnce the egg yolks and cream go in, the soup must not boil or even approach a simmer. Temper the yolks with a ladle of hot soup, return the mixture off the heat, and hold below about 180F. Boiling will curdle it into fish-flavored scrambled egg.
KariNineteenth-century French for curry powder. Ranhofer gives no quantity at all; a teaspoon stirred into the roux or bloomed in the lobster butter is a conservative starting point for this volume of broth. The seasoning here reads as a tint and a background spice rather than a curry, but that is an inference from the proportions, not something Ranhofer states.
Lobster butterClassically made by pounding cooked lobster shells and coral with roughly an equal weight of butter, warming gently, then straining through muslin and chilling; it can also be bought ready-made. Shrimp shells give a related but milder shellfish butter, though note that Ranhofer has already sent the shrimp parings into the broth.
DespumateSimply to skim. Hold the roux-thickened broth at a bare simmer and lift off the froth and butter that rise, before any egg goes near it. Ranhofer sets no time for this. Skimming is what makes the finished soup clear-tasting rather than pasty.
Quarter of a bottleful of wineAbout 6 fl oz, taking the period bottle as roughly 24 to 25 fl oz. Any dry white will do.
Blond rouxEqual weights butter and flour — 4 oz each here — cooked until it smells nutty and takes on a pale straw color, three to five minutes. Quarter pound of flour to three quarts of broth is a fairly thin soup by design; the eggs and cream do the rest of the thickening.
The bass headAsk a fishmonger to reserve one, gills removed, and rinse it well of blood. If unavailable, use about two pounds of white-fish frames. Ranhofer's thirty minutes is in line with the general practice of keeping fish stocks short, since long boiling of fish bones is usually said to turn a broth bitter and gluey.
The pressed filletsFrying the bass slices and cooling them under a weight firms them so they can be pared to neat rounds without falling apart. The trimmings go into the broth, so nothing is lost. Add the garnish to warmed bowls and pour the soup over.
YieldThree quarts of water goes into the broth; after straining and skimming, expect roughly eight to ten first-course servings.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef of Delmonico's in New York, and it is organized like a professional reference rather than a domestic cookbook — hence the cross-numbered entries and the assumption that lobster butter and blond roux are already on hand. Dishes in it are routinely named for patrons, singers, statesmen and, as here, for houses and places; a la Ponsardin has sometimes been read as a nod to the Champagne family of Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, the widow Clicquot, though Ranhofer, as usual, offers no explanation and the attribution is speculative rather than documented. The soup itself belongs to a category that has largely vanished from restaurant menus: the egg-thickened fish veloute, closely related to bisque, which depended on a kitchen brigade with time to make a fresh broth, press and pare a garnish, and hold a fragile liaison at temperature through a long service.