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Stewed Fish Cutlets
(Pesce a taglio in umido) The fish that can be used for this dish are the tunny, the umber or grayling, the sword fish and any piece of fish of large size and good savor.
A pound may be sufficient for four or five persons.
Remove the scales, clean and dry well, dip in flour and put to brown in a little oil. Remove dry, throw away the oil that remains and clean the saucepan. Make a hash, chopped very fine, with half a middle sized onion, a piece of white celery and a good pinch of parsley. Put this to brown on the fire with sufficient oil and season with salt, pepper and one whole clove. When it is browned put abundant tomato sauce (No 12) or tomato paste diluted in broth or water. Let it simmer for a while, then place the fish to complete the cooking, turning it over frequently. The fish must be served with this thick gravy that ought to be abundant. 117
A straightforward Italian umido: fish steaks floured and browned, then finished in a soffritto-based tomato sauce. The one thing to get right is the order — the fish goes into the sauce only at the end, and only long enough to finish.
- What "tunny" and "umber" areTunny is tuna; the "umber or grayling" is the Mediterranean ombrina (shi drum or corb), not the freshwater grayling. Any firm, meaty steak fish works — tuna, swordfish, halibut, mahi-mahi, or a thick cut of cod loin.
- Cut it thick"Pesce a taglio" means fish taken in cut pieces from a large fish rather than cooked whole. A thick cut is what the method needs: thin fillets will fall apart in the sauce and overcook before the flavors marry.
- ScalingThe instruction applies to whole-fish cuts of the period. Tuna and swordfish steaks from a fish counter need no scaling; just pat them very dry so the flour adheres and the surface browns.
- Two pans' worth of oilBrown the fish in oil, then discard that oil and wipe the pan — it carries scorched flour and fishy sediment. Start the soffritto in fresh olive oil, about 3 tablespoons.
- The soffrittoHalf a medium onion, a rib of pale inner celery, a good pinch of parsley, chopped very fine, softened over medium heat until golden — 8 to 10 minutes, not browned hard. The recipe calls for one whole clove and does not say to remove it; it is assertive, so do not double it.
- "Abundant tomato sauce (No. 12)"No. 12 is the book's own tomato sauce recipe. Substitute about 2 cups of passata or crushed tomatoes; if using tomato paste, 2 tablespoons loosened with a cup of broth or water gives the right body.
- Timing the fishSimmer the sauce 10 to 15 minutes on its own to lose the raw tomato edge, then slide in the fish for 6 to 10 minutes depending on thickness, turning once or twice. Tuna and swordfish go dry and stringy past that point — pull them while the center is just opaque.
- Yield and servingThe recipe reckons a pound as sufficient for four or five persons; by modern appetites three to four is closer. The sauce is meant to be loose and plentiful; serve it spooned over the steaks with bread or boiled potatoes rather than reducing it to a glaze.
This is one of the fish dishes in Maria Gentile's The Italian Cook Book (1919), a compact English-language collection published in New York for American cooks and drawing on the Italian domestic tradition codified by Pellegrino Artusi in the 1890s — hence the cross-references to numbered sauces. In umido refers to finishing browned meat or fish in a wet, seasoned base, and the trio of onion, celery and parsley chopped fine is an ordinary soffritto rather than anything specific to fish. The choice of tunny, ombrina and swordfish reflects what came off Mediterranean boats in large enough pieces to be sold cut into steaks.