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Porgies, Dominicaine
Scale, trim off fins and cut heads from six medium, very fresh porgies, split in two, remove spinal bones, place in a sautoire with half gill white wine, two gills water, half ounce butter and half teaspoon salt, and boil five minutes. Lift up with a skimmer and keep on a dish. Plunge eighteen freshly opened oysters in boiling water for two minutes, drain and cut in small square pieces. Reduce fish liquor on range to half the quantity, then add oysters to the fish broth, with half teaspoon anchovy essence. Mix on a plate half tablespoon butter with tablespoon flour, add to pan with an egg yolk, and gently mix until well thickened. Remove and let cool off. Have six pieces white paper fifteen inches square, fold in two, and with a scissors cut each piece in semi-heart shape; lightly oil on both sides, then place half a porgie in centre of each half paper, spread a little of the sauce over, then place the other porgie on top. Spread a little more sauce over, fold up papers, twist edges of paper around; when all finished place on a tin, set in oven fifteen minutes. Remove, dress on a hot dish and serve.
A fish en papillote dressed with an oyster velouté, from an era when parchment was oiled writing paper and porgies were the cheapest thing on the fish counter. The measurements convert cleanly; the oven temperature is the one thing the original leaves out.
- Gills and the poaching liquidA gill is half a cup. Half a gill of white wine is 1/4 cup, two gills of water is 1 cup — a shallow poaching liquid in a wide pan rather than enough to cover the fish.
- SautoireA straight-sided shallow sauté pan, roughly what a 10- or 12-inch skillet does now. The width matters more than the depth: the fish should lie flat in one layer.
- PorgiesPorgy, also sold as scup, is a small Atlantic panfish still available on the East Coast. Sea bream, small snapper or black sea bass fillets stand in without altering the method. Six medium fish split and boned gives twelve half-fillets, two per package.
- Oven heatThe recipe gives none. Paper or parchment packages of pre-cooked fish want a hot oven — 400-425F — so the packet puffs and colours in the fifteen minutes given rather than slowly drying out.
- The oystersTwo minutes in boiling water is right and the original knows it; anything longer and they tighten into rubber. They are only being firmed enough to dice, and they get more heat in the oven.
- Anchovy essenceA concentrated anchovy extract sold in bottles, still made in Britain. A teaspoon of anchovy paste, or two or three mashed oil-packed fillets, gives the same salty backbone.
- The liaison is the hingeButter-and-flour paste thickens the reduced fish liquor, but the egg yolk goes in off a hard boil and is stirred gently until the sauce coats. Let it boil after the yolk and it will curdle. Cool the sauce before it touches the paper, or the packets go soggy.
- PaperUse baking parchment rather than oiled writing paper. Cut the fifteen-inch square folded in half into a half-heart as directed, and crimp the open edge in small overlapping folds so steam stays in. Parchment needs no oiling.
- YieldSix packages, one per person. The recipe says only to dress them on a hot dish and serve, so the packets reach the table still folded.
Dominicaine is one of the hundreds of garnish-and-sauce names that circulated in professional French kitchens, attached loosely enough that no two books agree on what it signifies; here it means fish in paper with an oyster-and-anchovy sauce. The technique itself, en papillote, is far older and is often said to have begun as a way of cooking delicate flesh in its own steam over uneven heat, the oiled paper serving as both vessel and serving dish. What is distinctly American about the page is the fish: porgy was an abundant, inexpensive Atlantic catch, and this book is full of attempts to give humble local species the dignity of a French name and a French sauce. Serving the packet unopened, so the diner gets the burst of aromatic steam, was as much theatre then as it is now.