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Black Bass, Grand Duke
Trim, clean, wash and wipe well a fresh three-pound black bass. Place it in a frying pan with a tablespoon good butter. Season with a teaspoon salt, half teaspoon paprika; add half gill white wine, one and a half gills tomato sauce and six small heads well-cleaned and sliced fresh mushrooms. Cover the fish with a lightly buttered paper, boil on the range for five minutes; then set in the oven to bake for thirty minutes. Remove, lift up the paper; arrange the fish on a large dish, pour the sauce over and serve.
A whole fish braised in a shallow pool of wine and tomato under a paper lid — quick to assemble once the measures are translated. The main work is choosing a pan that goes from burner to oven.
- GillsA gill is half a cup. Half a gill of white wine is 1/4 cup; one and a half gills of tomato sauce is 3/4 cup.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given, and the book does not supply one. Around 400F is a reasonable modern choice for a covered fish of this size; a moderate 350F will also work but stretches the time.
- Timing, and why to ignore itThirty minutes is long for a 3-lb bass that has already simmered five minutes. Start checking at 18-20 minutes and pull the fish at 135-140F at the thickest part, behind the head. The flesh should just part from the backbone.
- The buttered paperThis is a cartouche: a round of parchment cut to the pan, buttered on the underside, laid directly on the fish. It traps steam without sealing, so the sauce reduces while the fish stays moist. Foil is not the same thing — it seals and the sauce stays thin.
- One pan, two heats"Boil on the range for five minutes, then set in the oven" means the same vessel throughout. Use an oven-safe skillet or a shallow braiser. What the original calls a boil should be a bare simmer; hard boiling in a quarter cup of wine will scorch the pan.
- Black bassLargemouth or smallmouth bass, a freshwater game fish. Commercial sale is restricted in much of the United States, so unless someone has caught one, or you find farmed bass, substitute a whole 3-lb striped bass, branzino, black sea bass or red snapper.
- Tomato sauceIn 1906 this means a cooked sauce of tomato, stock and roux from the kitchen's daily stock of sauces — closer to a smooth tomato velouté than to jarred pasta sauce. Passata simmered briefly with a spoon of butter and a little fish or chicken stock is the closest ready substitute.
- Mushrooms'Six small heads' most likely means six small whole mushrooms, sliced as the recipe directs; a few ounces at most.
- YieldA 3-lb whole fish serves three, generously four, once head and frame are accounted for. Serve it on a warmed platter and spoon the pan sauce over at the table.
The International Cook Book came from Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York, and its habit of hanging aristocratic titles on plain American fish is entirely of its moment. "Grand Duke" belongs to the same naming convention as Dubarry, Colbert and Rachel, named after notable figures — a minister of state in Colbert's case, an actress in Rachel's. Classic French usage does attach 'grand-duc' to conventional garnishes, though different kitchens attached the name to different combinations, and here it means simply white wine, tomato and mushroom. What the dish really records is the period when American freshwater game fish — black bass, whitefish, pickerel — still appeared regularly on grand hotel menus, dressed in the French manner to make them respectable. Modern fishery law is generally said to have curtailed the commercial sale of black bass, which is why the dish now tends to be made with something else.