Kegeree, or Kitchri, Prench Kadgiori, is a dish which
comes to us from the East Indies, where several varieties of
fish are used for its production. Kegeree of the English
type is composed of boiled rice, chopped hard-boiled eggs,
cooked minced fish, and some fresh butter; these are tossed
all together in the frying-pan, flavoured wnth pepper, salt,
J'REPARA 'J'IONS OF BRILL AND SOLE
525
and any minced garden herbs, such as cress, parsley, or mar-
joram✪ Kegeree, and sent to table hot. The recipe applies to fish
already cooked, as well as to fresh fish ; it is advisable to
make it savoury by some strong broth or some made sauce
(‘Wyvern,’ l.c., p. 168).
Brill, or hrett, or fcarl turbot, French barbue, may be
cooked in every variety of form applicable to turbot. "When
cooked its flesh is less firm than that of the turbot.
The sole, black sole, Dutch toncje, is taken principally in
the North Sea, but also in the Channel and on the Irish
coast. A celebrated fishing-ground for sole is the so-called
Silver Pits, a place some distance off the mouth of the
Humber. Sole lives principally on small crabs and shell-
fish, and will take such bait as a lug-worm ; but it is mainly
caught in trawl-nets, which scrape the ground, and, rousing
the fish lying on it, cause it to enter the bag-shaped net
behind the trawling-beam. On the ability of the fisherman
to manage his trawl depends much of the quality and flavour
of the fish ; for, while if he sail slowly the fish is likely to
escape the net, on the other hand, if he sail very fast the
fish are all swept to the bag end of the net, and get
smothered, bruised, and injured ; thus are produced the
soles with the filled black veins (not to be confounded with
pigmented veins) and the extravasations of blood which dis-
colour the white meat.
Sole does not keep long, and should be eaten as fresh as
possible ; by being kept even on ice it loses its quality, and
becomes flabby. The small-sized soles caught in shallow
water on the coast are the best. The older soles are the
greater in their size, and their weight, which reaches as
much as seven pounds, can be judged of by the appearance
of the scales. Those in roe should only be used for fillets,
as their flesh is insipid or destitute of flavour. The fish
seem to spawn, not at a fixed period, but at various periods
of the year. The colour of the sole varies with the ground
526
THE SPIRIT OF COOKERY
on which it feeds ; on a light sandy bottom it has a sandy
colour, and is called lemon sole, and this, if not really a
different species, is, at all events, a very inferior quality of
sole ; on a muddy, dark bottom its upper surface is hlach,
and this tint becomes its distinctive adjective. The under
side of all soles is white. The natural history of soles, and
of flat fish in general, offers many points of remarkable
interest. Thus, the twist of the head takes place only
during growth, and is not congenital ; then there are soles
in which the twist has taken place, in a sense, the opposite
of the usual direction. However, all these points influence
the quality for cooking but little. The sole is trimmed by
pulling off the dark, lemon, brown, or black coloured skin,
cutting off the head, and with a pair of scissors clipping
away the fins close up to the fillets, slitting open the
abdominal cavity and removing the intestinal tract, as also
the gills.
Page 331 · 1 recipe record on this page
Presented as published in 1895. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
Kedgeree, or Kitchri, French Kadgiori, is a dish which comes to us from the East Indies, where several varieties of fish are used for its production. Kegeree of the English type is composed of boiled rice, chopped hard-boiled eggs, cooked minced fish, and some fresh butter; these are tossed all together in the frying-pan, flavoured with pepper, salt,
PREPARATIONS OF BRILL AND SOLE
and any minced garden herbs, such as cress, parsley, or marjoram, and sent to table hot. The recipe applies to fish already cooked, as well as to fresh fish ; it is advisable to make it savoury by some strong broth or some made sauce (‘Wyvern,’ l.c., p. 168).
Brill, or bret, or pearl turbot, French barbue, may be cooked in every variety of form applicable to turbot. "When cooked its flesh is less firm than that of the turbot.
The sole, black sole, Dutch tong, is taken principally in the North Sea, but also in the Channel and on the Irish coast. A celebrated fishing-ground for sole is the so-called Silver Pits, a place some distance off the mouth of the Humber. Sole lives principally on small crabs and shellfish, and will take such bait as a lug-worm ; but it is mainly caught in trawl-nets, which scrape the ground, and, rousing the fish lying on it, cause it to enter the bag-shaped net behind the trawling-beam. On the ability of the fisherman to manage his trawl depends much of the quality and flavour of the fish ; for, while if he sail slowly the fish is likely to escape the net, on the other hand, if he sail very fast the fish are all swept to the bag end of the net, and get smothered, bruised, and injured ; thus are produced the soles with the filled black veins (not to be confounded with pigmented veins) and the extravasations of blood which discolour the white meat.
Sole does not keep long, and should be eaten as fresh as possible ; by being kept even on ice it loses its quality, and becomes flabby. The small-sized soles caught in shallow water on the coast are the best. The older soles are the greater in their size, and their weight, which reaches as much as seven pounds, can be judged of by the appearance of the scales. Those in roe should only be used for fillets, as their flesh is insipid or destitute of flavour. The fish seem to spawn, not at a fixed period, but at various periods of the year. The colour of the sole varies with the ground
on which it feeds ; on a light sandy bottom it has a sandy colour, and is called lemon sole, and this, if not really a different species, is, at all events, a very inferior quality of sole ; on a muddy, dark bottom its upper surface is black, and this tint becomes its distinctive adjective. The under side of all soles is white. The natural history of soles, and of flat fish in general, offers many points of remarkable interest. Thus, the twist of the head takes place only during growth, and is not congenital ; then there are soles in which the twist has taken place, in a sense, the opposite of the usual direction. However, all these points influence the quality for cooking but little. The sole is trimmed by pulling off the dark, lemon, brown, or black coloured skin, cutting off the head, and with a pair of scissors clipping away the fins close up to the fillets, slitting open the abdominal cavity and removing the intestinal tract, as also the gills.
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Kegeree