FISH À LA MARSEILLES
The French have another fish dish which, like bouillabaisse, is practically a meal in itself and which in these days should be better known to the American table. It is a specialty in the vicinity of Marseilles and made there, of course, with fish peculiar to the home waters, but M. Auguste Gay, Chef of the Yale Club, New York, who, incidentally, has probably given more attention to the adaptation of French cookery to American requirements than any other chef, is authority for the statement that the following recipe produces an almost perfect substitute for the French dish:
Chop into fine bits a small sweet Chile pepper and toss it about in a saucepan over the fire with a third of a cupful of olive oil or butter. When hot add a cupful of okra and the same amount of stewed fresh or canned tomatoes. Cook fifteen minutes and add a full cupful of cooked fresh fish—cod, haddock, etc., and a half cupful of flaked salt fish, mackerel, for instance. Cover and cook for twenty minutes longer and serve with water crackers.
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
One secret of the French cook's superiority to the American in preparing fish is that the former has almost a congenital knowledge of his subject. To him all fish is not just fish. He differentiates sharply as to species, tempering his treatment to varied requirements.
Roughly, there are two classes of fish: those which have dark flesh or flesh with a pinkish tone which is streaked with fat, and those which have white, firm flesh and are the more digestible. Best known in the first class are shad, butterfish, bluefish, salmon, mackerel and sturgeon, and in the second, cod, halibut, flounder, trout, rock and sea bass, pompano, weakfish and perch.
One matter-of-course rule is that no fish of whatever kind shall be allowed to enter the kitchen unless it is perfectly fresh. To be sure of this see that the gills are bright and shining and the flesh firm, not readily separating from the bones. That settled, you have an almost endless choice of ways of cooking.
Fish may be boiled, broiled, fried, baked, planked, creamed, steamed, cooked en casserole, jellied or pickled, but of all these ways none produces quite the universally satisfactory results with a sizable fish that planking does, and planking is not more difficult or expensive than other methods.
All that is required in the way of accoutrements is a half-inch-thick hardwood board which is heated in advance in the oven when planked fish is to figure on the menu. Then having thoroughly cleaned the fish, removed its head and tail, split it up the back half through the bone so that it will open out flat, brush it with butter and season with pepper and salt, place it skin-side down on the board.