Baked Shad and Pancake Day: Memories of the Coming of Spring

Every year when Fat Tuesday comes, heralding the beginning of Mardi Gras and also Lenten season, I remember back to my childhood.  Spring was fast approaching.  Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, the official start of Lent, was called Pancake Day at my house.  It was the day when we ate pancakes for dinner. Pancake Day is celebrated in many places around the world.


As a rule, we had fish every Friday in my family.  When it was Lent, however, we would have also have fish on Wednesdays.  That was just fine with me.  My mom would often bake shad, a rather large fish from the waters of the Atlantic.  I must admit that this was not my favorite fish dish, covered with a tomato sauce.  However, I was overruled and did eat it.  Liked the fish itself, except for the many bones, I just could not reconcile tomato sauce over my fish. To get the bones to soften, you have to cook them for a long time.


Shad, though, also meant having shad roe, which I did love. I still love it; I just don't eat it anymore.  It is soooo rich.  Anyway, the big thing for me was that Shad meant that Spring was upon us! Yea!


I looked back at on my mom's old cookbooks to see if I could reconstruct the Baked Shad recipe.  This is close, I believe.  I admit, that I do not add sauce to mine.  I'm more likely to top whole baked fish with lemon and onion slices and dill.  However, since this is a "memory lane" type recipe, I'll stick with the original
Nope, I think I'll go with mine.  You can add tomato sauce over the top, if you like.

Baked Shad with(out) Tomato Sauce

1 large Shad, about 4 lbs

Olive or canola oil

Garlic salt and pepper

1 medium onion, sliced

Dried dill flakes

2 lemons, sliced

1/2 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175C).  Gas mark 6.   Wash and dry fish.  I always have the head removed by the fishmonger.  Lay half of the sliced onions and 1 sliced lemon on the bottom of a well-oiled baking pan or oven-proof dish.  Sprinkle fish with garlic salt, dill and pepper and lay on top of the lemon and onion slices.  Brush top and sides of fish generously with oil.   Place remaining slices of onion and lemon on top of fish.  Sprinkle with dried dill flakes.   Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup water to bottom of pan.  

Cover pan with aluminum foil.  Cook for 2 hours.  Be careful of bones!

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