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Halibut, Parisienne
Procure three halibut steaks of three-quarters of a pound each. Slice white parts of three leeks exceedingly fine, place in a baking dish with a tablespoon butter, set on fire and slowly cook five minutes; place steaks on top. Peel and cut in quarters four sound red tomatoes, arrange them around fish and pour a gill white wine over. Season with light teaspoon salt, half teaspoon pepper, then spread an anchovy butter over, cover with lightly buttered paper, then set the fish in oven thirty-five minutes. Remove and serve in the same dish.
A straightforward braise-in-the-oven, but two phrases will trip a modern reader and the stated cooking time will ruin the fish.
- "Set on fire"This means set the dish on the fire, i.e. over direct heat on the stovetop, to sweat the leeks. It is not flambé. Use a shallow flameproof gratin dish or an oven-safe skillet so the same vessel goes from burner to oven to table.
- A gillA quarter pint: four fluid ounces in American measure, five in Imperial. A dry white with some acidity is right; nothing sweet.
- Thirty-five minutesLonger than most modern cooks will want. Note that the original gives weight, not thickness: twelve ounces a steak. A steak of about an inch is done in roughly 15 to 20 minutes in a moderately hot oven, and thicker cuts take longer; test at the bone, where the flesh should turn opaque and slip free. No temperature is given in the original, which is normal for the era, so check early rather than trusting the clock.
- Anchovy butterSoftened butter mashed with pounded anchovy fillets or anchovy paste, roughly one part anchovy to four parts butter, sometimes with a little lemon. Anchovy paste was sold commercially, but the butter is a minute's work to make. Because it is salted, cut the added salt back to a large pinch.
- Half a teaspoon of pepperHeavy by current taste for three steaks. A quarter teaspoon of freshly ground white pepper sits better with the leeks and wine.
- Buttered paperA cartouche of parchment, buttered side down, laid directly on the fish. It keeps the surface from drying while letting steam escape, which a tight foil lid does not. Cut it to the size of the dish.
- Tomatoes"Sound red tomatoes" means ripe and unblemished. Quartered plum or Roma tomatoes hold their shape best; very juicy varieties will thin the wine into a watery sauce.
- YieldThree steaks of twelve ounces each will serve three generously or six modestly if you divide them at the table. Spoon the leeks and pan liquid over each portion.
The Parisienne label in turn-of-the-century cookbooks often points to no fixed Parisian dish; it tended to signal the restaurant French idiom common in hotel and club cooking in Europe and America, and here it covers a familiar treatment of fish braised on a bed of aromatics with wine, under paper. The building blocks are typical of professional kitchens of the period: sweated leek whites as a flavour base, anchovy butter as a ready-made seasoning, and a paper cartouche instead of a lid. Halibut suited the method, being firm enough to hold together as steaks. Serving in the cooking dish, which the recipe insists on, spares a second transfer and keeps the food hot.