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Trout, Rochambeau
Trim, draw by the gills and wipe three very fresh medium brook trout. Place on a deep dish, add one and a half gills claret, six minced shallots, a branch parsley six tarragon leaves, the juice of half a sound lemon, a half teaspoon anchovy essence, sprig thyme, one crushed bay leaf, one sprig marjoram, half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons paprika. Mix well and let marinade in a cool place for an hour and a half. Place the trout and all the marinade in a frying pan with two fresh, crushed red tomatoes, cover the pan with a buttered paper, boil for five minutes on range, then set in the oven for twenty minutes. Remove, lift up the fish, place on a large hot dish and keep hot. Strain the sauce into a saucepan, add one gill demi-glace, twelve finely sliced, canned mushrooms, and let reduce to half the quantity.
Mix on a plate one ounce good butter with one teaspoon flour and gradually add it to the sauce, continually stirring meanwhile, pour sauce over the fish and serve.
A late-Delmonico's style braise: the fish marinates in red wine and herbs, cooks in that same liquid under a paper lid, and the liquid becomes the sauce. Nothing here is difficult, but several of the measurements and one of the ingredients need translating.
- Gills and saltspoonsA gill is half a cup, so one and a half gills of claret is 3/4 cup and the gill of demi-glace is 1/2 cup. A saltspoon is usually reckoned a quarter teaspoon, making the two saltspoons of paprika about half a teaspoon.
- ClaretClaret meant red Bordeaux. Any dry, moderately tannic red works; avoid anything oaky or jammy, since the liquid is reduced by half and concentrates whatever is in it.
- Oven heatThe book gives none. A moderate oven, around 350F, is a reasonable reading for twenty minutes on trout of this size — but check at twelve to fifteen minutes, since the fish has already had five minutes at a boil. The flesh should just flake at the backbone.
- Draw by the gillsGutting through the gill opening rather than slitting the belly, so the fish holds its shape during braising. Many fishmongers will not do it; a conventionally gutted trout is fine, it simply looks less neat on the platter.
- Buttered paperA cartouche — parchment cut to the pan's diameter, buttered on the underside, laid directly on the fish. It traps steam without sealing, so the liquid still reduces. Foil is not the same thing.
- Anchovy essenceA Victorian bottled condiment of anchovy, salt and spice. Half a teaspoon of anchovy paste, or a teaspoon of Asian fish sauce, gives the same background savour.
- Demi-glaceIn this period demi-glace meant a reduced brown sauce (espagnole let down with stock); modern versions are simply heavily reduced brown stock. Commercial concentrates are strong and salty, so dilute to a pourable stock consistency before measuring the half cup, and hold back the salt until the sauce is reduced.
- The butter and flourThis is beurre manié — kneaded, not cooked. Work the ounce of butter and teaspoon of flour to a smooth paste and whisk it in off a hard boil, in pieces, or the sauce will taste of raw flour and may break.
- YieldThree trout, three servings, as a fish course or a light main.
Alexander Filippini spent decades in the kitchens of Delmonico's in New York, and The International Cook Book (1906) carries the house habit of naming dishes for public figures — here the Comte de Rochambeau, the French commander whose troops marched to Yorktown in 1781. A classical garniture Rochambeau does exist in the French repertoire, but the name as Filippini uses it signals nothing fixed about the garnish; in this period a chef might attach it to whatever combination he pleased, and the tomato-and-mushroom finish here owes more to general French provincial practice than to any documented Rochambeau formula. The dish itself is a matelote in miniature — freshwater fish cooked in red wine, an old and thoroughly French idea that startles cooks who have been taught white wine with fish.