Jane Grigson's Fish Book - Jane Grigson [239]
Boiled potatoes, preferably new, go well with this dish. Turn them in parsley butter.
RAIE À LA CRÈME
This is a particularly rich and good recipe.
Serves 6
1½ kg (3 lb) skate
125 g (4 oz) unsalted or lightly salted butter
150 ml (5 fl oz) double cream
2 egg yolks, beaten
2–3 tablespoons parsley
Cook the skate in court bouillon no. 2* as in recipe above. Drain, arrange the pieces on a serving dish, and keep warm. Melt the butter in a frying pan, pour in the cream and stir until it is well amalgamated and bubbling; a few moments, that is all. Pour on to the beaten yolks, whisking with a fork, then return to the pan and heat without boiling until very thick. Add the parsley. Pour some of the sauce over the fish and serve the rest in a sauceboat.
SKATE MAYONNAISE
Serves 6
1½ (3 lb) skate
vinaigrette dressing*
mayonnaise*
crisp lettuce, such as Webb’s Wonder
Cook the skate in court bouillon in the way described above. When just done, remove and drain well. Put on a plate and pour over it, while it is still warm, a little vinaigrette dressing, made with lemon juice and olive oil.
Choose a lemon mayonnaise, or any other with a sharp seasoning. Put some lettuce leaves on a dish, arrange the skate on top and pour the mayonnaise over. Decorate with capers, olives or anchovies (depending on what kind of mayonnaise you have chosen to make) and chopped parsley. Serve chilled.
NOTE It is a refinement to remove the skate from the bones before arranging it on the lettuce, though not strictly necessary.
† SMELT, CAPELIN, ARGENTINE & SILVERSIDE Osmerus eperlanus, Mallotus villosus, Argentina silus & A.sphyraena, Menidia menidia
These slim silver fish, all much of a length when you see them in the market, about 15 cm (6 inches), are delicacies that should not be passed over. They are usually fried, traditionally deep-fried in the manner described by the Reverend George Musgrave in A Ramble Through Normandy that he made in 1854. One night he ended up at the Hôtel du Louvre at Pont Audemer, a simple place, where the landlady was ‘a capital cook… with an extraordinarily expeditious way of frying smelts. I had bespoken a score and a half (after having seen some in the market), and they were dished as they were fried, with two skewers, fifteen on each skewer, the slender pin passing through the heads, and the ring at its extremity serving to turn them in the pan all at once, for the more even frying.’ And beside the description there is a neat little drawing of his plate, with the two rows of fish. Chefs of the past have loved the smelt, and used it as part of their elaborate garnishing. Now, like the other small fish it resembles, it is more likely to provide a quick supper or the first course of the meal.
The great quality of the smelt – and I understand this applies to the capelin as well – is its smell of cucumber when freshly caught. By the time they appear at the fishmongers’, there is no trace of this elegant fragrance. My experience of the capelin is limited to Norway, where it is used as part of the feed thrown to salmon in their farm pens. The female roe is often removed and treated as caviare; we were given some with perfectly ripe avocados and it was good (it looked beautiful, too, being a pale orange-gold).
The Argentine or silver smelt provides the colouring for artificial pearls, but is well worth eating, especially the larger Argentina silus. So, too, is the silverside which in its tiniest form does duty as whitebait for Americans of the east coast.
For something a little more unusual, try the following recipe which has the effect of lightly pickling the fish.
ESCABÈCHE
This is an old recipe, particularly useful in pre-refrigeration days when supplies of fresh fish were erratic. You will find versions of it in English cookery books under the name of