Curried Cod
2 teaspoonfuls curry powder 1 medium-sized onion 1 tablespoonful lemon juice Salt, pepper, and red pepper to taste 2 cupfuls plain boiled rice 2 tablespoonfuls chopped cocoanut Wash and dry the cod, and cut into pieces two inches square. Melt Crisco in a saucepan, fry cod lightly in it, then take out and set aside. Add sliced onion, flour, and curry powder to the Crisco in saucepan and fry ten minutes, stirring continuously to prevent onion becoming too brown, then stir in the stock and cocoanut, stir until it boils, and afterwards simmer for twenty minutes. Strain and return to saucepan, add lemon juice and seasonings to taste, bring nearly to boil, then put in fish, cover closely, and cook slowly for half hour. An occasional stir must be given to prevent the fish sticking to the bottom of the saucepan. Turn out on hot platter and serve with rice. The remains of cold fish may be used, in which case the preliminary frying may be omitted. Flounder a là Creme 1 flounder about 2 lbs. 2 cupfuls milk 1 tablespoonful cream 3 tablespoonfuls Crisco 1 blade mace 6 whole white peppers 4 tablespoonfuls flour Lemon juice Salt and pepper to taste Skin flounder, and take fillets off neatly by sharply cutting down the middle of back, and pressing the knife close to the bones. This will produce 4 long fillets. Cut each of them in half lengthways, and tie up in pretty knot; sprinkle a little salt over and put them aside. Wash skin bones of fish, put them into a small saucepan with milk, mace, and whole peppers and simmer for half hour; strain milk into clean saucepan; add fillets, and allow to simmer for ten minutes. Lift them out, and add to milk the Crisco and flour beaten together; stir till it becomes quite smooth; add salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste, and cream; put in fillets gently to warm through; dish neatly and pour the sauce over them. Serve very hot.
Fish
A Crisco-era Anglo-Indian curry, printed with an ingredient list that has clearly lost a few lines in setting. Read the method first and work out the quantities from it.
- Missing quantitiesThe list omits the cod, the Crisco, the flour and the stock, all of which the method calls for. Reckon on about 2 lb of thick cod, 3 tablespoons of fat, 2 tablespoons of flour and 2 cups of fish or light chicken stock.
- CriscoThe book exists to sell hydrogenated vegetable shortening, so every fat here is Crisco. Any neutral oil, or ghee if you want the dish to taste more like the curry it is descended from, does the same job.
- CocoanutIn this period the chopped coconut would most likely have been fresh coconut prepared at home, or dried unsweetened shreds; modern sweetened flaked coconut will make the sauce cloying. Use unsweetened, or substitute a half cup of coconut milk stirred in at the end. Note that the recipe strains the coconut out before the fish goes in.
- Frying the curry powderThe ten minutes of onion, flour and curry powder is the step that carries the dish; the book only says to stir continuously so the onion does not brown too much. Commercial curry powder tastes raw and dusty until the fat cooks it out; rushing this leaves a chalky sauce, and letting the onion scorch turns it bitter.
- Cooking time for the fishHalf an hour of simmering will reduce two-inch cod squares to threads. Cod is done in six to eight minutes once the sauce is barely trembling, and the preliminary frying already sets the outside. Slide the pieces in, cover, and check at five minutes.
- StrainingThe onion and coconut are strained out after the twenty-minute simmer, which gives a smooth, pale sauce. If you would rather have texture, skip the sieve and leave the onion in.
- Cold fish versionThe note about leftovers is the practical heart of the recipe. Already-cooked fish needs only two or three minutes in the hot sauce to warm through.
- YieldOn the reconstructed quantities above, three to four servings; the two cups of boiled rice specified is a modest amount for four.
The Story of Crisco (1913) was Procter & Gamble's promotional cookbook for a brand-new product: cottonseed oil hardened by hydrogenation into a white solid fat that behaved like lard but kept for months without a cellar. The recipes were written to prove the fat could go anywhere, which is why an Anglo-Indian fish curry sits next to a creamed flounder in the same section. Curried cod itself belongs to the long British habit, well established by the middle of the nineteenth century, of using bought curry powder to make salt or fresh cod and yesterday's cooked fish more interesting; recipes of this shape appear in Victorian household manuals under names like curried fish.