Smoked Perch is similar to the Smoke Salmon recipe. However, perch fillets are much thinner than salmon so you must prevent the fillets from drying out, in a very tasty way. Since cooking over fire was the norm then, smoked perch would be a common, simple, and delicious meal.
Ingredients
- 1 pound fresh perch fillets
- Hard apple cider. If it isn't an abstinence day, you can use walnut oil, or butter (or olive oil if you are a rich 10th Century York person trying to impress your guests).
- Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Instructions
- Set up the stove top smoker as per directions that comes with the smoker, using 1 Tbsp of a mild smoking wood such as alder.
- Lightly rub apple cider onto perch.
- Place perch on smoker grill.
- Liberally add salt and pepper to top of perch.
- Set stove to medium heat and smoke perch for 16-20 minutes, or when perch is barely opaque.
- Eat immediately.
Notes
- http://www.amazon.com/Cameron-Cookware-Stainless-Stovetop-Smoker/dp/B00004SZ9D is the stove top smoker that I use for this dish.
- Unless you were well to do, you might not be able to freely use pepper every time you cooked perch or cod or other white fish. Since most white fish is pretty bland, it was likely Anglo-Saxons would have used one of the many common sauces recommended for fish in the earliest cookbooks. The vinegar-ginger sauce could have been used. Libellus de arte coquinaria, the cook book closest in time-space to 10th Century York recommends the following sauces:
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- Mustard, honey, and vinegar sauce: With mustard growing all over Northern Europe, this sauce would be on every table. Take 3 parts ground mustard to 1 part honey and mix that with a little apple cider vinegar until it has the right consistency. Anise and cinnamon could also be added.
- `Hunter Style,' Roast fish drippings mixed with apple cider vinegar.