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May 23
Menu: Potage, a la Monaco; Mackerel, Cold, Vinaigrette; Cucumbers, Bechamel Sauce; Tomato and Artichoke Salad; Monte Carlo Pie; Coffee Mackerel, Cold, Vinaigrette-Select fine mackerel; clean, leaving head on, wrap in piece of cheesecloth, and boil in strong solution of vinegar and water until tender, taking care that it does not cook too long. 15 to 25 minutes should be sufficient. Make a vinaigrette sauce with 1/2 cup tarragon vinegar, 1 cup melted Crisco, 1 teaspoon made mustard, 1 teaspoon chopped parsley, 1 teaspoon chopped shallots, and 2 teaspoons chopped capers. Put vinegar into basin, add mustard, little salt, stir in Crisco and chopped ingredients. Mix well together, lay mackerel, after removing from cloth, on long platter, pour over vinaigrette sauce and let marinate thoroughly, putting in refrigerator as soon as cool. Serve ice cold in bed of parsley, garnished with lemon slices, and pass vinaigrette sauce with it.
A cold poached mackerel dressed in a broken vinaigrette, from a book written to sell shortening. The fat is the one thing worth rethinking before you start.
- The Crisco problemMelted shortening is solid at refrigerator temperature. A vinaigrette built on a cup of it will set into white flecks and a greasy film over the fish once chilled, which is exactly how this dish is served. Olive oil gives the sauce the original intent; the Crisco is here because Procter & Gamble published the book.
- Made mustard"Made mustard" means prepared wet mustard, not mustard powder. Any smooth prepared mustard will serve; the original does not say which kind was meant.
- The poaching liquidThe original does not quantify its "strong solution of vinegar and water"; something on the order of one part vinegar to three or four parts water, salted, is a reasonable reading. Mackerel is oily and the acid cuts it; keep the liquid at a bare shiver rather than a rolling boil or the flesh shreds inside the cloth.
- TimingFifteen to twenty-five minutes is generous by modern practice. A whole mackerel of a pound or so is done in 10-12 minutes at a simmer, and the flesh should just part from the backbone. Overcooked mackerel goes dry and cottony even under a dressing.
- The cheeseclothWrapping is not decorative. It holds a soft-fleshed fish together through cooking and lets you lift it onto the platter in one piece. Leave long tails of cloth at each end as handles.
- Tarragon vinegarStill sold, but easily made by steeping a few bruised sprigs in white wine vinegar for a week. Plain white wine vinegar plus a teaspoon of chopped fresh tarragon does the same job.
- Shallots and capersChop both fine and rinse the capers if they are salt-packed. The sauce is not emulsified and will separate; stir it again before passing it at the table.
- Yield and servingTwo mackerel of about a pound each serve four as a cold first course or light lunch. The stated sauce quantity is enough for twice that, so halve it unless you want a bowl passed alongside as directed.
- MarinatingLet the fish cool in the sauce before it goes into the refrigerator, then give it at least two hours cold. It keeps a day but not much more; oily fish turns sharp quickly.
Mackerel eaten cold under a sharp dressing is old European economy: the fish is fatty, spoils fast, and was traditionally cooked in acidulated water both to firm the flesh and to keep it a day longer in a cellar or icebox. That logic is why the recipe insists on vinegar in the poaching water and on the refrigerator as soon as it cools. The odd part here is the vinaigrette itself. This page comes from one of the Crisco cookbooks Procter & Gamble issued in the 1910s, written by Marion Harris Neil to persuade American cooks that hydrogenated cottonseed oil could stand in for butter, lard and salad oil alike. Neil was obliged to work Crisco into dishes where no cook would naturally reach for it, and a cold vinaigrette is the clearest case of the brand overruling the kitchen. The dated headings running through the book -- "May 24" here -- belong to a calendar of dinners rather than to the recipe itself.