No. 399

Fish Glaze

Glace de Poisson

Put into a saucepan six pounds of bass, four of soles, and two of codfish; moisten with fourteen quarts of water and one quart of white wine; boil, skim, and season with salt, cloves, whole all spice, two cloves of garlic, half a pound of onions, and a bunch of parsley garnished with two bay leaves and as much thyme. Let simmer for one hour, then strain through a napkin, and reduce to a quarter of its quantity, then set it away in a bowl to get cold; turn it out, and cut off the top, leaving the sediment at the bottom, then put it back on the fire, and reduce to the consistency of a thick syrup.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is a professional-scale reduction from a hotel kitchen: roughly twelve pounds of fish and nearly four gallons of liquid boiled down to a syrup that will set to a rubbery jelly. Everything about it scales down cleanly by eight or ten, and most of the technique is still exactly how glace de poisson is made.

The hinge: never let it boil once it is reducedBelow about a quart the liquid holds so much gelatin and dissolved solids that it scorches the moment the pan runs dry at the edges. Move to a smaller, heavier pan as the volume drops, keep it at a bare tremble, and stir the last stage constantly.
Salt almost nothing at the startRanhofer seasons the initial stock, but reducing it this far concentrates that salt many times over. Season the stock barely at all and correct the glaze, or the dish it flavours, at the end.
ScaleDivide throughout by eight for a domestic batch: about 12 oz bass, 8 oz sole, 4 oz cod, 3½ pints (1¾ quarts) water and half a cup of white wine, 1 oz onion. The finished yield will be very small.
Use frames, not filletsThe gelatin comes from bones, skin and heads, and Ranhofer's pounds of fish would have been whole fish broken down in the kitchen. Ask a fishmonger for bass, sole and cod frames, gills removed, and rinse them of blood. Avoid oily fish such as mackerel, salmon or bluefish, which do not reduce cleanly.
One hour is long by current practiceModern kitchens draw fish stock for 20 to 30 minutes, after which the bones begin giving up bitterness and a glue-like taste. Ranhofer's hour was aimed at extracting every scrap of gelatin; a shorter simmer followed by longer reduction gives a cleaner glaze.
"Strain through a napkin"A double layer of damp muslin or a coffee filter in a fine sieve. Ladle rather than pour, and do not press the solids, or the glaze will cloud.
The chilling stepCooling the reduced stock lets fine particles fall and any fat rise. Turning out the set block and trimming both the fat cap and the muddy sediment is what separates a bright glaze from a murky one; do not skip it for speed.
Testing and storingIt is done when a spoonful cools on a cold plate to a firm, tacky jelly that holds a fingerprint. Refrigerated in a sealed jar it keeps a couple of weeks; frozen in an ice-cube tray, several months. A single cube dissolves into a pan sauce, and it will be intensely salty and savoury on its own.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer wrote The Epicurean (1894) out of some three decades running the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry sits in a run of glazes — chicken, game, fish, half-glaze — of the sort a large brigade kept on hand. Reduce a stock far enough and it becomes a nearly solid block of flavour that can be spooned into a sauce, brushed over poached fish for shine, or used to strengthen a soup that has come out thin. The name comes from glacer, to glaze. A recipe calling for fourteen quarts of water tells you plainly that this was not written for a household cook.