The Parker House Scrod Recipe

I was watching Emeril's Original yesterday as he visited three of the oldest restaurants in Boston. One was, of course, the Union Oyster House, the oldest continuously operated restaurant in America. The second was Doyle's, an Irish pub founded in 1882, and the oldest in the city. The last was the Omni Parker House which opened in 1855. Emeril's first job as a sous chef was at the Parker House back in the late 1970s. At the Parker House he focused on three "inventions" of the restaurant Boston Cream Pie, Parker House Rolls, and Scrod.

Every New Englander knows that scrod isn't any more of a fish than Boston Cream Pie is a pie. Scrod, whatever the origin of the name, is a small cod or haddock (chef's occasionally try to sneak in pollock as well) and is usually taken to be the freshest whitefish from the day's catch bought at dockside. That's not the conspiracy, however.

Watching Emeril go through the recipe for Parker House Scrod with Head Chef Gerry Tice, I thought it sounded much better than the cod with bread crumbs that mother used to make which made me a convert to broiled salmon. I missed part of the ingredient list, however, so I went to the internet to track down the recipe. It wasn't available at Emeril's website, but I did find a recipe from Chef Tice's appearance on another show:

 Parker House Scrod

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:
6(8oz.) filets of baby cod (use only cod)

1 cup milk
1 tsp. lemon juice

1/2 cup olive oil

2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp. paprika

1/2 cup white wine
1/2 lb. melted butter

1/4 lb. Ritz crackers, finely crushed

salt and pepper to taste

Method:
1. Marinate in the refrigerator baby cod in milk, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, olive oil and paprika for two hours (the longer the better).
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
3. Remove from marinade and dip each filet into cracker crumbs. Cover all surfaces well.
4. Place filets in buttered baking pan.
5. Drizzle with melted butter
6. Pour white wine into pan, being sure not to drizzle directly onto fish.
7. Bake until flaky, approximately 10 minutes. Do not overcook.
8. Place under broiler for a few minutes to finish and give color.

The marinade is the secret mother never bothered with. However, this morning through the wonders of video on demand. I relistened to the directions in the Emeril show and noticed several differences. First, the milk was replaced by heavy cream and second, garlic was an ingredient while Worcestershire Sauce and lemon juice wasn't mentioned at all. The filets were cooked in a skillet on stove top rather than baked. The finished product was finished with a lemon beurre blanc.

What's going on here? Starting with the cooking, the stove top method is probably used at the Parker House because of the heavy duty skillets and high temperature stoves in a professional kitchen. At the end of the cooking period which the show gives as 15 minutes not 10, the cast iron skillet could easily be popped under a broiler to finish. Home cooks would definitely do better with the baked method.

Lea and Perrin's original Worcestershire sauce is made up of vinegar, molasses, sugar, salt, anchovies, tamarind extract, onions, garlic, and probably cloves, soy sauce, lemons, pickles and peppers. According to Wikipedia the American recipe has replaced the sugar with high fructose corn syrup and the malt vinegar with distilled white vinegar.

The Worcestershire and the lemon juice would seem to lend a sharpness to the marinade missing from the TV version. I have no explanation for this other than most home cooks wouldn't bother with the Lemon Beurre Blanc so this might be a way to build the sharpness of the sauce right into the marinade. This is supported by the fact that at least some beurre blanc recipes include Worcestershire Sauce.

It seems that rather than hiding some kitchen secrets, Chef Tice is providing us with a home cook version of the classic Parker House recipe. I think I'd follow the recipe except to replace the milk with at least half and half and add a couple of chopped cloves of garlic to the marinade (milk is supposed to fight garlic breath by the way). I always get nervous drowning garlic in anything that is going to be sitting around for a couple of hours because theoretically it can promote the development of the botulism bacteria. However, milk is slightly acidic and the lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce even more so, add refrigeration and this will prevent bacteria growth for the two hour marinade.





If you don't have a recipe for Parker House Rolls may I suggest the Brown Irish Bread from the Sheep Pasture Farmer's Market? It's so much better than the white bread version!