Pawaru-Grahmata

№ 61IX. nodaļa

Pastēte no smērdelēm

Cold pie of small fish in sweet wine jelly

  • Serves 6
  • about 1¾ hours, plus cooling and overnight chilling
  • Melnraksts · vēl nav izmēģināts

1796Pasteete no smehrdelehm.

Modernizētslpp. 424–425 · PDF 438–439
6 porcijas

The book gives ½ mārciņa of hartshorn (about 210 g) and 1 lots of isinglass (about 13 g) for the jelly, boiled for 3 hours and then another hour, and a quarter of an hour's boiling for the fish. We use gelatine instead; the other amounts are ours, for a 22 cm dish.

Method

8 soļi
  1. The fish: bring the vinegar, water and salt to a simmer, add the fish and poach gently for 4–6 minutes, until just cooked through. Lift them out into a dish, cool, and remove the backbones from larger fish. Discard the liquid.
  2. The forcemeat: in a food processor, purée the pike with the salt, then add the egg, yolk, butter, breadcrumbs and mace and process until smooth. Chill.
  3. Heat the oven to 200 °C (180 °C fan). Butter a 22 cm ovenproof dish about 5 cm deep. Cut a strip of pastry 3 cm wide from the first sheet, wet the rim of the dish and press the strip onto it.
  4. Spoon the forcemeat into the dish and shape it into a mound, higher in the middle. Cover with the second sheet as a lid, pressing it onto the pastry rim. Trim, crimp and glaze.
  5. Bake for 30–35 minutes, until the pastry is golden and the forcemeat reaches 72 °C in the centre.
  6. The jelly, while the pie bakes: simmer the water with the lemon zest for 5 minutes. Add the wine and sugar and heat until the sugar dissolves, without boiling. Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for 5 minutes, squeeze them and stir them into the hot liquid until dissolved. Strain through a muslin-lined sieve and leave to cool to room temperature; it must still be liquid.
  7. When the pie comes out, cut round the lid with a sharp knife and lift it off. Leave the pie to cool for 20–30 minutes.
  8. Lay the fish over the forcemeat and pour the cool jelly over them. Chill until the jelly has set, 2–3 hours, then put the lid back on. Chill for several hours more, or overnight, and serve cold. Keep refrigerated and eat within 2 days.

Notes

What the book says vs. what we added

the book boils fresh loaches for a quarter of an hour in vinegar and salt, pours the vinegar off and puts the fish in a bowl. A pastry rim is made round a buttered pewter dish and filled with a forcemeat of the flesh of a small pike, eggs, butter and bread, mounded in the middle; a lid goes on top and it is baked. Meanwhile ½ mārciņa of finely grated hartshorn is boiled with the peel of a lemon, water and 1 lots of finely cut isinglass; after 3 hours it is tested for setting, then sweet wine, sugar and more lemon peel are added and it boils another good hour. When the pie is baked the lid is taken off, it cools a little, the loaches go in, the jelly is strained over through a linen cloth, and when it is cold and firm the lid goes back on. The pie is left in the cellar to cool completely and served cold. "This pie is a lot of work to make, but it also looks pretty and tastes good." The substitute fish, the gelatine, the shorter fish cooking, the seasoning, oven temperature and times are ours.

Loaches

smērdeles are loaches (German Schmerlen), small bottom-living freshwater fish that were a classic dish in German and Baltic kitchens. They aren't sold today, and the spined loach is protected in the EU. Smelts (salakas or stintes, sold in Latvia in spring), small perch or trout strips are the easiest substitutes. The book's quarter of an hour in vinegar would leave such small fish firm and sour; a few minutes is enough.

The jelly

hartshorn shavings and isinglass were the usual setting agents before gelatine. The book's jelly is sweet, flavoured with wine and lemon; that was normal for aspics then. Halve the sugar if you prefer.

Safety

a cold pie in jelly should be kept in the fridge, like any cooked fish dish.

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