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Halibut, Scalloped, with Cheese
Remove bone and skin from a three-pound piece of fresh halibut, cut in then slices and place on a dish. Season with teaspoon salt, three saltspoons pepper, saltspoon grated nutmeg, squeeze juice of half a sound lemon, sprinkle teaspoon parsley over and turn well in seasoning. Place in a sautoire an ounce flour and same quantity butter and knead thoroughly, then dilute with a light pint milk and let come to a boil. Season with a half teaspoon salt, saltspoon cayenne and half saltspoon grated nutmeg, add two egg yolks and two ounces grated Parmesan cheese. Stir a little and boil one minute longer. Pour a little of the sauce at bottom of a china baking dish, arrange a layer of fish over sauce. Cover fish with more sauce, then a layer of fish, etc., until finished. Cover with sauce, sprinkle two tablespoons bread crumbs. Distribute half ounce butter in small bits on top. Set in moderate oven to bake forty-five minutes. Remove and serve in the same dish.
A straightforward gratin of raw halibut layered with a Parmesan-enriched béchamel. The measurements are in the small-spoon system of the period, and the bake time assumes a thicker, cooler oven than most people run today.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. So three saltspoons of pepper is three-quarters of a teaspoon; the nutmeg on the fish and the cayenne in the sauce are a quarter teaspoon each, and the half saltspoon of nutmeg in the sauce is an eighth.
- "A light pint"A pint just short of full — call it 1¾ to 2 cups of milk. The sauce should be pourable rather than thick, since it has to run between thin slices of fish.
- "Then slices"A printer's error for thin slices. Cut the halibut across into pieces roughly a quarter-inch thick so the layers cook evenly.
- SautoireA shallow straight-sided sauté pan. Any heavy saucepan works; the point is a wide base for making the roux and sauce.
- The egg yolksThis is the hinge. Adding two raw yolks to a boiling sauce and then boiling it "one minute longer" will scramble them unless the pan is off the heat first and the yolks are tempered with a ladle of hot sauce before going in. Return it to low heat only long enough to thicken.
- Moderate ovenConventionally reckoned at somewhere around 350°F, though the book gives no figure and period usage varied. The dish is assembled from raw fish and hot sauce, so it needs real time in the oven, but forty-five minutes will likely leave thin halibut dry. Thirty minutes is usually enough for the sauce to bubble at the edges and the fish to set; run the broiler briefly if the crumbs need colour.
- SaltTwo ounces of Parmesan carries a good deal of salt on its own. Season the sauce lightly and taste before it goes over the fish.
- YieldThe three pounds is the weight before boning and skinning, so rather less fish reaches the dish. It should still fill a 9x13 dish and serve six or so.
The International Cook Book is the work of Alexander Filippini, long a chef and manager at Delmonico's in New York, and its recipes carry the vocabulary of a French-trained professional kitchen — sautoire, the roux kneaded rather than cooked, the sauce finished with yolks and cheese in the manner of a sauce Mornay. The technique — sauce, fish, sauce, crumbs, butter, oven — is the standard gratin that a hotel kitchen could assemble in quantity ahead of service and send to the table in the same china dish it baked in.