Name: A Cod’s Head and Shoulders
Yield: Serves 4
Ingredients: 1 large bunch of watercress; 1 tbsp grated horseradish; 18 oysters; 225 ml/8 fl oz/1 cup hot fish stock; pinch of ground nutmeg; pinch of cayenne pepper; 140 ml/5 fl oz/⅔ cup cream; 16 quails’ eggs, hard-boiled for 1 minute 45 seconds; 85 g/3 oz/⅓ cup butter; 200 ml/7 fl oz/scant 1 cup white wine; 4 lemons; 1 cod’s head with about 8 cm/ 2½ inches of shoulder; salt and white pepper, to taste; 12 white peppercorns; 170 g/6 oz/⅔ cup sea salt; 4 bay leaves and 2 thyme sprigs (or 2 prepared bouquets garnis); 1 tbsp flour; 1 tsp white wine vinegar

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

How to Cook The Victorian Way with Mrs Crocombe

By Annie Gray and Andrew Hann

Published 2020

About

A poached cod’s head and shoulders was a very popular dish on both the 18th- and 19th-century dinner table. It was practical, as it used a cut which would otherwise be used for soup or stock, but which held quite a bit of flesh. It also had the advantage of having several types of texture and flavour: meaty tongue, delicate cheeks and, of course, the firm cod steaks themselves (the shoulders). It would have been cooked in a fish kettle, but the original recipe also advises that you can stea