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Croutes Hollandaises
Soak some well washed Dutch herrings in milk for three hours; then drain and dry them and fillet them, allowing half a fillet for each guest. Lay these halved fillets into a well buttered tin; squeeze a little lemon juice over them, cover with a buttered paper and cook in a moderate oven for seven minutes. Meanwhile melt together a quarter of an ounce each of butter and flour, moisten with a gill of milk, stir in a teaspoonful of made mustard, two tablespoonfuls of freshly grated Parmesan, and the same of beer and let it boil up. Have ready some fingers of hot fried bread; dust these well with minced chives or shallots and cayenne; place a half fillet of herring on each; pour the above sauce over all and serve very hot.
A savoury of salt herring on fried bread under a mustard-and-Parmesan sauce sharpened with beer. Most of the work is in the soaking, and the sauce quantities are smaller than they look.
- Dutch herringsThese are salt-cured herring, sold today as salted herring or maatjes fillets, usually in brine or vacuum packs. If your fillets are already mild-cured maatjes, an hour in milk is enough; heavily salted whole herring wants the full three hours, and a taste of the soaking milk will tell you where you are.
- The milk soak is the hingeSkipping or shortening it can leave the dish very salty, since the Parmesan adds more salt on top. Change the milk once during a long soak and discard it afterwards.
- Moderate ovenAbout 350F (175C). Seven minutes is right for a thin fillet already cured and softened; the fish only needs heating through, and longer will dry it.
- Buttered paperA round of parchment laid directly on the fish. It keeps the surface from drying without steaming it the way foil would.
- A gillHalf a cup in American measure, five fluid ounces in British. Either works here; the sauce should coat, not flood.
- Quarter ounce each of butter and flourRoughly 7 g each, about a teaspoon and a half of butter and two and a half of flour. That is an ordinary coating ratio for a gill of milk; with the beer stirred in it should still pour.
- Made mustardPrepared mustard from the jar, not powder. An English or Dijon mustard suits the beer better than a sweet yellow one.
- The beerTwo tablespoons, stirred in at the end and boiled up briefly to take off the raw edge. A pale ale or lager is safer than anything strongly hopped, which turns bitter when reduced against Parmesan.
- Fingers of fried breadCut crustless white bread into strips about three inches by one and fry in butter until crisp on both sides. They must be crisp and hot when the sauce goes on, or they collapse.
- YieldHalf a fillet per person, so a pound of herring fillets will stretch to sixteen or so servings as a savoury or first course. Assemble and serve immediately.
The name reads as "Dutch crusts" — a croûte being the fried bread base, and hollandaise here most likely pointing at the herring rather than at any egg-and-butter sauce. Salt herring was for centuries a great Dutch export commodity, cured aboard the boats and shipped across Europe in barrels. Dishes of this shape belong to the savoury course, the small hot mouthful of something salty, cheesy or fishy served at the end of a long dinner in the British manner.