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Nova Scotia Canapés
Cut white bread in one-third inch slices; stamp out with heartshaped cutter; spread both sides thinly with butter, brown them delicately in the oven. Mince Nova Scotia smoked salmon and moisten with Mayonnaise or Boiled Salad Dressing. Spread each heart with mixture, dispose a dainty border of finely chopped white of egg around each and tip it off with a sprinkle of the yolk pressed through a sieve. Do not cover the salmon entirely with the egg. Arrange canapés on small plates covered with a lace paper doily; garnish each with a spray of parsley and serve as first course.
A straightforward Edwardian first course that depends almost entirely on assembly and timing. Everything can be prepped ahead, but the toasts must not be spread until close to serving.
- The hinge: spread at the last minuteButtered toast holds up for hours, but salmon bound with dressing will soften it fairly quickly. Toast the hearts, mince the salmon, sieve the egg, then assemble shortly before serving.
- Toasting the breadThe original says only "brown them delicately in the oven." Use 350F and turn the slices once; six to ten minutes gives colour without drying the crumb to a cracker. A close-grained white sandwich loaf, a day old, cuts cleanest with the cutter.
- Nova Scotia salmonThen as now this means cold-smoked salmon, brine-cured and smoked below cooking temperature — broadly the product sold as "nova" at a delicatessen counter, and traditionally distinguished there from salt-cured lox. Hot-smoked or kippered salmon flakes rather than minces and will not spread.
- Boiled Salad DressingA period cooked dressing of egg yolk, flour or cornstarch, vinegar, mustard and milk, thickened over water. It is tarter and looser than mayonnaise. Either works; use only enough to moisten, as a wet mixture will slide off the toast.
- The egg garnishHard-cook the eggs, chop the whites fine, and press the yolks through a fine sieve or tea strainer for the powdery finish the recipe wants. One egg garnishes roughly a dozen canapés.
- SaltCold-smoked salmon is already well salted and the dressing adds more. Do not season the mixture before tasting it.
- YieldNo quantity is given. Reckon on 4 oz of smoked salmon and about two tablespoons of dressing for twelve to sixteen hearts, which serves four as a first course.
The canapé course belongs to the elaborated American dinner of the 1900s, when a small savoury on toast joined the older oyster or clam opener and gave the hostess something that could be arranged rather than cooked. "Nova Scotia" on a menu of this date is generally taken to have signalled provenance, and the name eventually stuck to the style itself rather than the fish's origin — the "nova" of the New York delicatessen counter. The heart cutter, the lace paper doily and the sieved yolk are all of a piece with the period's taste for decorative small food, and the instruction not to cover the salmon entirely is a reminder that the point of the garnish was contrast on the plate.