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Pickerel, Castillane
Trim off the fins and wipe a very fresh pickerel of three and a half pounds. Place in a dish, season with a teaspoon salt, half teaspoon white pepper, squeeze in juice of half a lemon, add a teaspoon anchovy essence and a half teaspoon chopped parsley. Repeatedly turn fish in the seasoning and let infuse until required. Heat two tablespoons olive oil in a braising pan, then add four peeled and thoroughly washed raw potatoes scooped out with a Parisian potato scoop, two sound, seeded green peppers cut in small squares, half a sound medium Spanish onion, gently brown for fifteen minutes, carefully stirring meanwhile, then add two sweet red peppers cut in small squares. Place fish on top of these articles, pour over marinade with a half gill claret and let reduce on range for fifteen minutes. Pour in a gill each demi-glace and tomato sauce, lightly mix, cover pan and set in oven for forty-five minutes, remove, lift up fish, dress on dish, pour contents of pan over and serve.
A braised whole fish in the Castilian manner, from the era when a hotel kitchen had demi-glace standing by. The main thing to fix is the cooking time, which will destroy the fish as written.
- The timing is the hingeFifteen minutes reducing on the range plus forty-five in the oven is longer than a 3½ lb fish needs. A whole pickerel of that size will be done in roughly 25-30 minutes in a covered pan at a moderate oven, or when the flesh parts from the backbone; cooks who prefer the usual safe figure should take it to 145F at the thickest part behind the head. Build and reduce the vegetable base first, then lay the fish on it for the short final stretch.
- Oven temperatureNone is given; the recipe says only 'set in oven'. For a covered braise of this kind, 350F is a reasonable modern setting.
- GillA gill is half a cup. So half a gill of claret is 1/4 cup, and a gill each of demi-glace and tomato sauce is 1/2 cup each.
- PickerelIn American usage of this period the word covers young pike and, loosely, walleye. Any firm-fleshed lean freshwater fish of about 3½ lb works; sea bass or a small striped bass is the closest saltwater substitute. Ask for it scaled and gutted with the head on, which holds the shape through braising.
- Anchovy essenceA thin, salty anchovy extract sold bottled for seasoning. Anchovy paste thinned with a little water, or a teaspoon of good Asian fish sauce, gives the same effect. Note that it is salty on top of the teaspoon of salt already in the marinade.
- Parisian potato scoopA melon baller. Four potatoes scooped into small balls; the trimmings are not used here, so save them for something else. Give the balls a head start in the oil, as fifteen minutes of gentle browning will not cook them through and they finish alongside the fish.
- ClaretPeriod shorthand for red Bordeaux, but any dry, unoaked red will do. A dry Spanish red suits the dish's character.
- Demi-glaceReduced brown veal stock. Commercial demi-glace concentrate is fine; failing that, use 1/2 cup of well-reduced beef or veal stock. A fish fumet reduced hard is closer to modern practice and less heavy against the pickerel.
- YieldA 3½ lb whole fish with the potatoes and peppers serves four generously.
Castillane — Castilian — is one of the standard garnish names of the classical repertoire, and like most of them it is a shorthand rather than a regional recipe: onion, tomato and both green and sweet red peppers, cooked in olive oil, signalled Spain to a French-trained kitchen. The International Cook Book (1906) gathers dishes of exactly this stamp, hotel and restaurant cookery organised by nation, and the presence of demi-glace here points to a professional setting rather than a domestic one. The fish itself is the American contribution. Pickerel and pike were common market fish in the Great Lakes and Northeast at the turn of the century, cheap enough to be everyday and firm enough to survive a braise, and cookbooks of the period often dressed them in French sauces to raise their standing at table.