Munchie Monday: Fish Pudding

The Fish Pudding recipe is most likely another recipe added to the 19^th century Macculloch-Miller family cookbook by great-granddaughter, Frances Hitchcock Keasbey, who lived until 1939. Even though the family had their roots in Scotland and England, the ingredients in this recipe do not resemble a British fish pie, or Fisherman’s Pie, since it does not include potatoes or leeks.

This fish pudding recipe does call for rich milk for the cream sauce. Rich milk is not the same as heavy cream. Rich milk has a fat content of 4% or higher while heavy cream has a fat content of at least 36%. To recreate rich milk for this recipe, we used 1 1/3 cup of whole milk and 2/3 cup of heavy cream to make 2 cups of rich milk. Another adaptation to this recipe was poaching the fish filets rather than boiling them. When this recipe was first made, boiling the fish may have been necessary to remove excess salt, if the fish had been salted to preserve it.

The recipe provides a good basic recipe for fish pudding which can be enhanced by adding white wine or lemon to the water during poaching or additional seasonings to the cream sauce.

 

Original Recipe—Fish Pudding

Boil white fish (1 ½ lbs.) until tender. Pick off all the meat when it gets cold. Take 1 pint rich milk, put a small onion in it & let it come to a boil. Have ready 1 tablespoon of flour, rub to a paste & stir into the milk until it is smooth and creamy. Season highly & take out onion. Put in a dish a layer of fish & a layer of gravy, until dish is full. Then pour rest of gravy on top & sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Bake about 20 minutes. Parsley can be used as flavoring.

 

Adapted Recipe—Fish Pudding

1 ½ pounds of white fish (cod and/or haddock)

1 pint rich milk (1 1/3 cup whole milk and 2/3 heavy cream)

1 small onion

1 tablespoon of flour

2 tablespoons of butter**

¼ cup plain breadcrumbs for topping

Fresh Parsley

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Poach the fish filets in 11” skillet with ¾ cup of water on low to medium heat. Heat the water first but do not let the water temperature go above 140 degrees. Add the fish filets. Flip the fish filets after three to four minutes then the cod will change from translucent to opaque and become flaky. Remove from heat and let cool.

For the cream sauce: In small saucepan, warm the milk mixture and whole peeled onion. Let this come to a boil, stirring frequently. In another pan, melt butter.** To test if ready, sprinkle a little flour to see if it bubbles in the butter. When it does stir in 1 tablespoon of butter to make the roux. Remove onion from the warm milk mixture and add slowly to the roux, stirring frequently until it thickens. Add salt and pepper.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray baking dish. Pick apart fish filets and place small pieces in baking dish. Cover with cream sauce then sprinkle breadcrumbs over the top.  Add chopped parsley. Bake for 20 minutes, when cream sauce is bubbling around edges. Serve hot.

**Original recipe does not list butter.

In this 1826 fish pudding recipe, an equal amount of breadcrumbs and fish are used as well as eggs. The fish pudding is made in a mold.  “You ate what?” Episode 2 “Fish Pudding” (youtube.com)

Fish pudding recipe from the 1920s. Historic Recipe: Steamed Fish Pudding (1920) – Cabbages and Kings. And Kate (cabbagesandkingsandkate.com)