Jane Grigson's Fish Book - Jane Grigson [135]
Cook them in a shallow pan of water if you like, but preferably in a well-flavoured fish fumet* made from the bones of the fish being used. The quenelles will disintegrate in boiling liquid, so the water or fumet should barely simmer. Serve with one of the sauces mentioned already, and with boiled rice if the quenelles are to be the main course.
Quenelles de Mousseline
You will get the best result if the three main ingredients, and the utensils, are well chilled before you start work. Electrical equipment is what has made such laborious items popular again, after a long gap while we adjusted to the idea of kitchens without slaves.
500 g (1 lb) fillets of pike
4 large egg whites
600 ml (1 pt) double cream
salt, pepper, nutmeg
Cut up the fillets and reduce them to a purée, with the egg whites, in a blender or processor. Push the purée through a fine sieve (electrical, again). Whip the cream until it is very thick but not stiff. Fold it into the fish until you have a thick, homogeneous mass. The problem with quenelles is to get the fish to absorb the cream; the egg whites help, and if you are attempting the recipe by hand, the bowl should stand in a larger bowl with plenty of ice cubes.
Season the mixture, and leave it in the refrigerator to chill for several hours. As the meal approaches, make the sauce (see above) and keep it warm: boiled rice is sometimes served as well, so cook that too. Last of all, put a wide flat pan of salted water on to boil. Shape a quenelle with two warmed tablespoons and slip it into the water which should barely simmer; the quenelle will disintegrate in boiling liquid. Add more quenelles until the pan is comfortably full. Remove them with a perforated spoon as they are cooked – 8 to 10 minutes should be right, but taste the first quenelle to make sure; the inside should be a little creamy. Keep hot, and serve with the sauce poured over them.
This light rich mousseline is also used for steaming in small and large moulds, either on its own, or as the basis of a fish terrine with layers of contrasting shellfish or smoked fish or strips of sole and salmon. Oil the moulds, stand them on a rack or a wad of newspapers in a roasting pan with about 2½ cm (1 inch) boiling water. Poach them on top of the stove with a sheet of foil over the top, or in the oven preheated to gas 5, 190°C (375°F). The centre should be just firm when lightly pressed – according to size and cooking this can take about 20–40 minutes.
PILCHARDS see SARDINES
PLAICE see SOLE
POLLACK, POLLOCK see COD
PORBEAGLE see SHARKS
PORGY see SEA BREAM
PRAWNS & SHRIMPS
Palaemon serratus & Crangon crangon
I agree with something I read once about prawns and shrimps – the prawn was described as a ‘tasty morsel’, but the writer – R. C. O’Farrell in Lobsters, Crabs and Crawfish – went on to say that it was ‘less of a palate-tickler than a freshly-cooked brown shrimp’, preferably eaten out of a paper bag while walking along the promenade at Morecambe. A rare food pleasure I remember from the war years was walking along Morecambe Bay with my sister, each of us with a brown paper bag of shrimps. They were small and brown, the best kind. We chewed without bothering to peel all of them. Something of their vivid sweetness came through in potted shrimps when they went on sale again as food became easier. But then they began to taste dull. Eventually, I discovered why – it was not my increasing age, as I had feared, but a complete change in production.
In the old days, the catch was cooked on board and brought in at all hours. Whatever the time of day or night the fishermen’s wives, mothers, daughters, aunts, sisters and grandmothers would set to and pick (shell) the shrimps, then they would pot them in butter, catching the fresh flavour. This used to be done at home in the family kitchen but now it is a formal process carried out in a centre – still by the wives, etc.