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Frost-Fish, Ravigote
Neatly trim and clean six very fresh, small frost-fish. Season with a teaspoon salt and half saltspoon pepper, lightly wet with a little cold milk and roll in flour. Heat one and a half tablespoons melted butter or oil in a black frying pan, add fish one beside another and fry for five minutes on each side. Remove, drain on a cloth, dress on hot dish, decorate with six quarters lemon, a little parsley greens, and serve with ravigote sauce separately.
A plain pan-fried fish with an accompanying sauce the recipe assumes you already know how to make. The only real difficulty is sourcing the fish.
- What a frost-fish isIn American books of this period frost-fish usually means the Atlantic tomcod, a small member of the cod family that runs into estuaries in cold weather; in parts of New England the same name was applied to silver hake. It is rarely sold under either name now; any small, firm, lean whole fish of about 6-8 oz — whiting, small sea bass, sand dab, smelt — will behave the same way in the pan.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so half a saltspoon is an eighth of a teaspoon of pepper. The teaspoon of salt for six fish is about right for whole fish seasoned inside and out.
- Black frying panA well-seasoned cast-iron or carbon-steel skillet. The point is a surface that holds heat and releases a flour crust; nonstick will not brown as evenly.
- More fat than statedA tablespoon and a half of butter will not cover the bottom of a pan large enough for six fish. Use enough to film the pan generously, and cook in two batches rather than crowding — crowded fish steam and the flour coating slides off.
- Milk and flourWetting with milk rather than dipping in egg gives a thin, dry crust that browns quickly. Flour immediately before frying; if the coated fish sit, the flour turns pasty.
- TimingFive minutes a side suits whole tomcod of a few ounces. For anything approaching half a pound, three to four minutes a side over medium-high heat is enough; the fish is done when the flesh at the backbone lifts cleanly.
- Ravigote sauceThe book expects you to look this up elsewhere. In this period it means either a cold sauce of oil, vinegar, capers, shallot and chopped tarragon, chervil and parsley, or a warm velouté finished with a herb butter. The cold version is the easier match for fried fish.
- YieldSix small fish serve three as a main course, or six as a first course.
Frost-fish took its name from its season: the tomcod runs up the tidal rivers of the northeastern United States in late autumn and winter, and nineteenth-century accounts describe them being taken through holes in the ice or found stranded on frozen flats, which is often given as the origin of the name. They were cheap, abundant and small enough to fry whole. Dressing a cheap local fish with a ravigote, a French herb-and-vinegar sauce of the classic repertoire, reflects the common practice of finishing local ingredients in the Parisian manner. Tomcod is little sold today, and the name has faded with it.