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Sheepshead, Caroline
Cut off the head, scale, trim and wipe well a fresh sheepshead of three and a half pounds. Split in two through the back, remove the spinal bone and lay in a small tin. Season with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon paprika; pour in a half gill white wine and a gill of water; place six finely chopped shallots on top of the fish, spread half ounce of butter over the surface; place two branches parsley in the pan. Cover the fish with a sheet of lightly buttered paper, boil on the range for five minutes, then set in the oven for twenty minutes. Remove, dress on a hot dish and keep hot. Mix in a saucepan one tablespoon melted butter with one and a half tablespoons flour, then strain in the fish gravy, adding half a gill tomato sauce; mix well, boil for two minutes, pour over the fish and serve.
A straightforward oven-braise: the fish cooks in its own liquor under a paper lid, and that liquor becomes the sauce. Two things decide the result — not overcooking the fish, and straining the pan juices into a properly cooked roux.
- Gills and half gillsA gill is half a cup, so the water is 1/2 cup, the white wine 1/4 cup, and the tomato sauce 1/4 cup. The half ounce of butter is one tablespoon.
- "A small tin"This means a shallow metal roasting or sheet pan just large enough to hold the two halves of fish in a single layer, not a loaf tin. Too large a pan and the small amount of liquid evaporates before it can become sauce.
- Oven heatThe recipe names no oven temperature; a moderate oven, around 375F, is a reasonable reading. Twenty minutes suits a 3 1/2 lb fish split down the back; check the thickest part at the shoulder for 145F and pull it as soon as the flesh parts from the bone.
- The buttered paperA cartouche of parchment, buttered on the underside, laid directly on the fish. It traps steam and keeps the surface from drying without sealing the pan as foil does. Cut it to the size of the pan.
- "Boil on the range for five minutes"Bring the liquid to a simmer on the stovetop first so the fish begins cooking immediately when it goes into the oven. A hard boil is not wanted and will fray the flesh.
- ShallotsSix shallots is a generous quantity by modern measure; two or three modern shallots, finely chopped, is a reasonable substitution.
- The fish itselfSheepshead here is the Atlantic Archosargus probatocephalus, a firm-fleshed inshore fish then common in eastern markets. Black drum, porgy, striped bass or any firm white fish of similar size behaves the same way in this treatment.
- The sauceCook the butter and flour together for a minute before adding the strained liquor, or the sauce tastes raw. If the pan juices have reduced to almost nothing, loosen with a little fish stock or water rather than adding more flour.
- YieldA 3 1/2 lb whole fish, headed and boned, serves three to four as a main course.
Alexander Filippini spent decades in the kitchens of Delmonico's in New York, and his books carry the habit of that trade: dishes named after patrons, performers and society figures, with the name doing the work of describing a garnish or a sauce. "Sheepshead, Caroline" tells the cook nothing about the dish except that this particular combination — white wine, shallots, a tomato-tinted velé made from the braising liquor — had been fixed under that name in a professional kitchen. Sheepshead itself was a market staple along the Atlantic coast in the nineteenth century, and Brooklyn's Sheepshead Bay is traditionally said to be named for it; the fish later became scarce in northern waters, which is part of why a fish once ordinary on New York menus is now unfamiliar to many American cooks. The method is classic French braising scaled to a domestic oven, and Filippini applies it to other fish in the book, varying the finishing sauce.