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Bisque of Halibut
Cut into small pieces one and a half pounds fresh halibut. Finely slice a good-sized peeled onion, two leeks, four branches each celery and parsley, a branch chervil and bean sound garlic; place these articles in a large saucepan with a bay leaf, two cloves, a sprig of thyme and any heads, tails or bones of fresh whitefish on hand. Moisten with two and a half quarts water, season with two teaspoons salt and let slowly boil for one hour. Heat one and a half tablespoons butter in a large saucepan, add the cut halibut and cook for ten minutes; besprinkle with two and a half ounces flour, mix well while heating for two minutes, strain the fish broth into this pan, add a pint of milk and constantly stir until it comes to a boil. Season with a saltspoon each cayenne pepper and grated nutmeg, lightly mix and let boil for thirty-five minutes. Dilute one egg yolk in a half gill cream and add to the soup with half ounce good butter. Mix well while heating for five minutes without boiling, remove, strain through a sieve into a basin, then through a cheesecloth into a hot soup tureen and serve.
A classic strained fish veloute in the Delmonico manner: a fumet built from the trimmings, a roux thickened body, and a final egg-and-cream liaison that must never boil. Everything else is negotiable; that last step is not.
- The liaison is the hingeOnce the yolk and cream go in, hold the soup below a simmer — 175F or so — for those five minutes. A boil scrambles the yolk into grains that no amount of straining through cheesecloth will fully rescue.
- Old measuresA gill is half a cup, so a half gill of cream is 4 tablespoons. A saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. Two and a half ounces of flour is weight, roughly 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons, or 70 g — measuring it by volume alone will give you a thinner soup.
- "Bean sound garlic"Almost certainly to be read as "a bean of sound garlic"; "bean" was a period word for a clove, and the line has either lost a word or, like "four branches each celery and parsley", simply dropped it. Treat it as a single firm clove, sliced.
- ChervilRarely stocked fresh; the flavour is anise-tinged parsley. A sprig of tarragon plus extra parsley stands in adequately, or leave it out rather than substituting dried chervil, which tastes of nothing.
- The brothTwo and a half quarts simmered an hour is longer than much modern fish-stock practice, which often keeps the extraction short; shortening it to about forty minutes will give a cleaner result and reduce the volume less.
- The 35-minute boilThe halibut is meant to fall apart here; it is being cooked to dissolution, not to serve in pieces. Stir at intervals so the roux does not catch on the bottom, and skim what rises.
- Double strainingPush through a fine sieve first, forcing the fish solids through, then pass the result through damp cheesecloth. Skipping the second pass leaves a soup that looks slightly grainy in the bowl.
- YieldNot stated. Allowing for reduction and the pint of milk, expect about 2 quarts finished soup — eight to ten first-course servings.
The International Cook Book belongs to Alexander Filippini, long a chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this recipe carries the marks of that kitchen: a stock built from scraps, a French roux and liaison, and a final passage through cheesecloth so the soup arrives at the table faultlessly smooth. The word bisque originally attached to shellfish — crayfish, lobster, crab — thickened in the old French manner with pounded shells and rice or bread; the name is often traced to the Bay of Biscay, though that derivation is traditional rather than documented. By about 1900 the term seems to have loosened in professional kitchens to mean any rich, strained, cream-finished puree soup, which is how a plain flatfish comes to be called a bisque here. Halibut suited the purpose: firm and mild, and well able to carry the cream and the sieve.