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Red Snapper, Court Bouillon
Finely slice a peeled carrot, one turnip, one onion, two branches parsley; add two cloves, two bay leaves and one sprig of thyme; place all these articles in a fish kettle, with a gallon of water, a half gill white wine, half gill vinegar, half a sliced lemon, one tablespoon salt and half teaspoon pepper; let boil for fifteen minutes. Plunge in a three-pound piece fresh boiled red snapper and let slowly boil for twenty-five minutes. Remove, dress on a dish with a folded napkin and serve with a little melted butter separately.
A classic aromatic poaching liquid with a whole piece of fish set into it. Two things in the original text need reading past: the units are pre-metric American, and the phrase "let slowly boil" should be taken as a bare simmer.
- Never let it boilA rolling boil breaks the flesh apart and squeezes out albumin, leaving a scummy liquid and a shredded surface. Keep the pot at 170-180F, where the water barely trembles, for the whole twenty-five minutes.
- Gills and the wineA gill is half a cup, so half a gill of white wine and half a gill of vinegar are each 1/4 cup. That is a modest amount of acid for a gallon of water; it is there to firm the flesh, not to flavor it aggressively.
- "Fresh boiled red snapper"Read this as "fresh red snapper"; the word "boiled" appears to be stray, since the fish goes into the court bouillon raw and comes out cooked with no earlier boiling. Use a 3-lb center-cut piece, skin on, or a whole small snapper if the kettle takes it.
- Doneness, not the clockTwenty-five minutes suits a thick 3-lb piece. Judge instead by internal temperature at the thickest point, 130-135F, or by the flesh parting cleanly from the backbone. Thinner fillets will be done in eight to ten minutes.
- Fish kettle substituteA wide roasting pan set over two burners works, or any deep pot the fish fits into flat. Wrapping the fish in cheesecloth with long ends, or setting it on a folded strip of foil, lets you lift it out whole without cracking it.
- Start cold or hotThe recipe plunges the fish into hot liquid, which is right for a piece meant to be served hot. Fish intended to be eaten cold is better started in cool court bouillon and allowed to cool in it.
- The folded napkinA period presentation device: a linen napkin on the platter absorbs the poaching liquid that drains from the fish so the dish does not flood. A folded tea towel does the same job.
- Yield and the butterThree pounds of snapper serves four to six. The "little melted butter" is best clarified, or built into a quick hollandaise or beurre blanc, and the strained court bouillon is worth keeping for a soup or a second poaching.
Court bouillon is simply French for "short broth" — short in the sense of quickly made, an infusion of vegetables, herbs and acid rather than a long-simmered stock. It is the standard French treatment for large firm-fleshed fish, and its appearance in a book called The International Cook Book reflects the era's assumption that professional cooking meant French method, applied to whatever the local market supplied. Here the local supply is red snapper, a Gulf of Mexico fish that reached northern hotel kitchens in quantity once rail and ice made the run from the Gulf ports practical in the later nineteenth century. The garnish of a folded napkin, now vanished, was a common way of sending boiled fish to table.