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Broiled Pickerel
Cut head and fins off a fresh three-pound pickerel, split in two through the back and remove spinal bone. Mix on a plate a tablespoon oil, teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper, repeatedly turn fish in seasoning, arrange on a broiler and broil for five minutes on each side. Remove, dress on a hot dish, spread a little maitre d'hotel butter over, decorate with a little parsley greens and serve.
A plain broiled freshwater fish from the era when "broil" meant a hinged wire basket held over coals. The two things to settle before you start are what fish you actually have and how long it truly needs.
- The fishPickerel is used loosely: in the northern United States it means chain pickerel or other small pike, while in Canada it commonly means walleye. Either works, as does whole pike, small lake trout or black bass. A three-pound whole fish yields two to three servings once head, fins and frame are gone.
- BonesTrue pike and pickerel carry Y-shaped intermuscular bones that no amount of splitting removes; walleye, the Canadian "pickerel", does not. Lifting the spine as directed leaves any Y-bones behind; expect to pick them out, or have the fishmonger fillet the fish and remove them.
- What "broiler" meantA hinged double wire grill set over a coal fire or, later, a gas grate, so both surfaces got direct heat. Under a modern overhead broiler, cook skin side down first with the rack 4 to 5 inches from the element, then turn once.
- TimingFive minutes a side suits a thin split fish over a hot fire. A thick-shouldered three-pounder needs longer, on the order of ten minutes total per inch of thickness; cook until the flesh is opaque throughout and separates into flakes, and for wild freshwater fish take it to 145F at the thickest point.
- Keep it from stickingThe tablespoon of oil in the seasoning is not enough on its own. Oil the grate or broiler pan as well, and leave the fish alone until the skin has set, or it will tear when turned.
- Maitre d'hotel butterNot a bought product. Cream softened butter with chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper — roughly a tablespoon of parsley and two teaspoons of juice to four tablespoons of butter — and chill it firm so it melts over the hot fish at the table.
- SeasoningA full teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of pepper is for the whole three-pound fish, applied by turning it in the oiled seasoning on the plate. It is closer to a rub than a marinade; do it just before cooking.
Broiled fish dressed with maitre d'hotel butter was the standard restaurant and hotel treatment for a good-quality fillet in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The butter is named for the hotel steward or head of household staff, and by this period the phrase functioned as shorthand on menus for parsley-and-lemon butter, requiring no explanation to a cook of the day. Pickerel and pike were then ordinary market fish in the inland states and in Canada, sold cheaply and often, which is why a three-pound whole fish is treated as an unremarkable purchase; the bony frame that keeps pike out of most supermarket cases today was simply part of the work of eating freshwater fish.