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Codfish, Espagnole
Procure three slices fresh codfish, three-quarters of a pound each. Place in a frying pan two small, finely minced green peppers and one finely minced white onion with half ounce butter and let gently brown for three minutes, lightly stirring with a fork; then place the fish over. Season with a teaspoon salt, half teaspoon white pepper, and a saltspoon Spanish saffron diluted in a tablespoon water. Peel and cut into quarters three good-sized red tomatoes and place all around the fish; cover with a sheet of lightly buttered paper and set in the oven to bake for twenty-five minutes. Remove, lift up the paper, place the fish on a hot dish, remove the spinal bones, pour the contents of the pan over the fish, sprinkle a teaspoon of chopped parsley over all and serve.
A one-pan Spanish-style braise that needs almost nothing changed except a stated oven temperature and a shorter bake. The book gives none, so work from the fish rather than the clock.
- Oven and timingThe book gives no oven temperature; a moderate oven, around 400F, suits the dish. Twenty-five minutes may be more than steaks of this size need, so check at 12-15 minutes and judge by the fish: the flesh should have just lost its translucency and separate into flakes (roughly 130-135F at the bone; cook to 145F if you prefer the standard food-safety figure).
- What "Espagnole" means hereNot the brown mother sauce. In this book the name signals the Spanish trio of peppers, tomato and saffron, and the dish is closer to a Basque or Catalan preparation than to anything in the classical sauce repertoire.
- Saltspoon of saffronA saltspoon is about a quarter teaspoon, which is a great deal of saffron by volume. Use a generous pinch of threads, perhaps 20-30, steeped in the tablespoon of warm water for ten minutes so the color and aroma are drawn out before they hit the pan.
- Three slices, three-quarters of a pound eachThese are cross-cut steaks from a large cod, bone in, which is why the recipe tells you to lift out the spinal bone at the end. Thick center-cut loin pieces work as well; skinless fillets will cook faster still and need no boning.
- The buttered paperA cartouche of parchment laid directly on the fish, not a sealed foil lid. It keeps the surface from drying while letting the tomato liquid reduce slightly. Cut it to the width of the pan and butter the side facing the fish so it does not stick.
- PanThe whole dish goes from stovetop to oven, so use an ovenproof skillet or a shallow braising pan. Half an ounce of butter is one tablespoon, enough only to sweat the peppers and onion without browning them hard.
- PeppersIn American cookbooks of this period 'green peppers' usually meant sweet peppers rather than chiles; two small ones, or one medium, is the right quantity. If you want heat, that is a departure from the recipe rather than a restoration of it.
- TomatoesPeeled quarters of ripe tomatoes collapse into the sauce as they bake. Out of season, drained canned whole tomatoes cut in half give a better result than hard fresh ones, though the pan will be wetter.
- YieldThree steaks of that weight serve three generously or four modestly. Serve with bread or plain rice to take up the saffron-tomato juices, which are the point of the dish.
Cod cooked with peppers, tomato and saffron belongs to the Mediterranean coast rather than to the North Atlantic where the fish was caught, and the pairing was made possible by the salt-cod trade that carried Newfoundland and Icelandic fish to Spain, Portugal and Italy for centuries. This version calls for fresh cod; the salt-cod original would have needed a long soak first. Books like this one, assembled in the era of the grand hotel kitchen, collected national dishes and labeled them loosely by country, so "Espagnole" here functions as a menu word signaling saffron and tomato rather than any documented regional recipe. The buttered paper cover is standard professional practice of the period.