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Broiled Shad, Ravigote
Neatly scale, trim and remove the principal bones of half a very fresh roe shad of three pounds. Mix on a plate a tablespoon oil with a teaspoon salt, half teaspoon white pepper and roll the fish all over in the seasoning. Arrange on a broiler and broil on a brisk fire for six minutes on each side. Remove, dress on a large hot dish and send to the table with a ravigote sauce in a saucebowl separately.
A plain gridiron recipe that assumes two things a modern cook may not have: a fishmonger who can bone a shad, and a live charcoal fire. Both are worth working around rather than ignoring.
- The boning is the whole jobShad has a lattice of fine floating bones that no amount of careful filleting removes by feel; "remove the principal bones" is doing a lot of quiet work. Order boned shad fillets, or ask the fishmonger to bone it — otherwise expect to eat around them.
- "Broiler" and "brisk fire"At the time of writing a broiler is a hinged wire gridiron held over coals, and a brisk fire is a hot, fully-ashed-over bed. Under an overhead gas or electric broiler, cook skin side up on the top rack and do not flip a boned fillet — it will fall apart.
- Six minutes a side is for a bone-in halfSix minutes a side is for a thick half-fish -- A boned fillet three-quarters of an inch thick is done in 4 to 6 minutes total at high heat. Shad is oily and forgiving, but past 145F at the thickest point it turns dry and grainy.
- Roe shadA roe shad is the female, sold in spring with the paired egg sacs. The roe is not addressed here and should not go on the grill; it is traditionally cooked separately in butter or bacon fat, gently, until just firm.
- Ravigote sauceTwo sauces carry the name. The cold one is a sharp vinaigrette with capers, shallot, parsley, chervil and tarragon; the hot one is a velouté finished with herb butter and vinegar. Either suits shad; the cold version is the better foil for an oily fish.
- Seasoning quantitiesOne tablespoon of oil for a pound and a half of fish is a film, not a marinade — enough to keep it from sticking. A teaspoon of salt is right for that weight. White pepper is the conventional choice on pale flesh, avoiding dark specks.
- YieldHalf a three-pound shad is two servings, or three if the roe and a starch go alongside.
Shad is the American spring fish, Alosa sapidissima — the species name means "most savory" — running up the Atlantic rivers from Florida and the St. Johns north to the St. Lawrence to spawn, and for most of the nineteenth century arriving in eastern markets by the barrel at prices that made it cheap and widely available. Its reputation was double-edged: superb flavour, ruinous bones, and a boning technique that was said to be the preserve of a few practised hands in fish markets and hotel kitchens. That is why this recipe can dispose of the hard part in a single clause. The ravigote alongside is standard French hotel practice of the period — the name comes from ravigoter, to perk up or invigorate — and its acidity and herbs are exactly what an oily river fish wants. Shad runs have since collapsed across much of their historic range, and several states have closed or restricted the fishery, so the casual abundance this recipe takes for granted no longer holds.