A guide to modern cookery

The operation consists in cooking the fish (or slices or fillets of fish) in the frying-pan with very hot butter, after having seasoned them and sprinkled them with flour. If the fish are very small, ordinary butter is used; if, on the other hand, they are large, the procedure demands clarified butter. When the fish is sufficiently coloured on one side, it is turned over for the completion of the operation. This done, it is transferred, by means of a spatula, to a hot dish, whereon, after having been salted, it is sent to the table. It may be served as it is with a garnish of trimmed half-lemons. Fish prepared in this way are termed ‘“‘dorés’”’ (gilded), ‘* Soles dorés,’’ ‘‘ Turbotins dorés,’’ &c., in order to distinguish them from those prepared a la Meuniere. If the fish is announced ‘‘a la Meuniére,’’ a few drops of lemon should be sprinkled upon it; it should be seasoned with salt and pepper, and garnished with concassed, scalded parsley. At the last moment a piece of butter, in proportion to the size of the fish, is put in the frying-pan, and is heated until it begins to brown slightly. This is poured over the fish immediately, and the latter is sent to the table at once while still covered by the froth resulting from the contact of the butter with the parsley. 779—THE POACHING OF FISH This method is best suited to sole, chicken-turbots, and brill, as well as to the fillets of various fish. Having laid the fish to be poached in a baking-tray or a sautépan, either of which should have been previously buttered, season it moderately with salt and moisten with a little very white fish or mushroom fumet; very often the two latter -are mixed. Cover the utensil, push it into a moderate oven, and baste from time to time, especially when a large fish is cooking. When the fish is done, drain it carefully, place it on a dish, and, as a rule, reduce the poaching-liquor and add it to the sauce. Poached fish are always served sauced; 1.e., covered with the sauce which properly forms their accompaniment. More often than not they are garnished after the manner which will be described later. I most emphatically urge: (1) the use of very little fish fumet for the poaching, but this fumet should be perfect and should, above all, not be cooked for longer than the required time; (2) that the fish be not covered with buttered paper as is often done, for nowadays a suitable paper is very rarely found. All papers found on the market are, owing to the chemical products used in their manufacture, liable to impart a more or less pungent smell to the objects they enclose, which in either degree would prove seriously prejudicial to the preparation. These remarks not only apply to fish, but to all those objects with which paper was formerly used at some stage in their cooking process. 780—THE BRAISING OF FISH This method is generally applied to whole or sliced salmon, to trout, and to chicken-turbot. Sometimes the fish treated in this way is larded on one side with strips of bacon-fat, truffles, gherkins, or carrots. The mode of procedure is exactly the same as that described under the ‘‘ Braising of White Meats ’’ (No. 248). Moisten these braisings in the proportion of onehalf with white wine or red wine (according as to how the fish is to be served), and for the other half use a light fish fumet. Place the fish on the drainer of a fish-kettle just large enough to hold the former, and moisten in such wise that the cookingliquor at the beginning of the operation does not cover more than three-quarters of the depth of the fish. Unless it be for a Lenten dish, the fish may be covered with slices of bacon while cooking. In any case, baste it often. Take care not to close the lid down too tightly, in order that the liquor may be reduced simultaneously with the cooking of the fish.