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Garnish, Cucumber, for Salmon
Drain off the liquor from about three pounds of boiled pickled salmon; place the salmon on a dish, and cover it completely with two or three layers of thin slices of fresh cucumber, from which the rind has been taken. Probable cost, 6d. each. Sufficient, one good-sized cucumber for three pounds of salmon.
A finishing treatment rather than a dish in its own right: cold cooked salmon, drained of its pickling liquor and blanketed in cucumber. The only real technique is in the slicing.
- "Boiled pickled salmon"This means salmon that has been poached and then steeped in a spiced vinegar liquor, not raw fish cured in brine. Cold poached salmon, or a good-quality hot-smoked or cold-poached side, stands in perfectly well; if you want the Victorian tang, a brief steep in seasoned vinegar after cooking gives it.
- Drain it properlyAny pickling liquor left clinging will weep out under the cucumber and slacken the garnish. Lift the fish out, let it sit on a rack or folded cloth for a few minutes, then plate it.
- Cucumber thickness"Thin slices" here means near-translucent, the work of a mandoline or a very sharp knife. Thick coins sit up off the fish and look like salad rather than scales; thin ones drape and overlap.
- Salting the cucumberPeriod cucumbers could be bitter and watery, and some contemporary recipes salt and drain sliced cucumber before use. With modern varieties this is optional, but a light salting and ten minutes' draining, patted dry, keeps the slices from pooling water on the dish.
- The rindPeeling was the usual treatment for cucumbers of the period, and their skins were generally tougher than those of modern varieties. A modern English or Persian cucumber needs no peeling, and the green edge makes the overlapping layers read better on the plate.
- "Probable cost, 6d. each"Cassell's gives costings for most entries so a housekeeper could budget; the sixpence here appears to be the cucumber, not the salmon. It carries no information for a modern cook beyond telling you cucumbers were then a bought luxury rather than a year-round staple.
- Quantity and timingOne good-sized cucumber to three pounds of fish is what the entry allows for two or three overlapping layers; three pounds of salmon would serve roughly six to eight as a cold course. Best assembled shortly before serving, as the cucumber softens and the colour dulls on standing.
Cold salmon dressed with cucumber is one of the fixed pairings of the English table, and by the time Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery was compiled in the 1870s it was so established that the book treats the cucumber purely as a garnish, with its own dictionary entry, rather than as part of a salmon recipe. Pickled salmon a poached, then kept under spiced vinegar was a practical way of holding a large fish for several days before reliable refrigeration, and it travelled well; barrels of it were sent from Scotland and Ireland to London markets. The vinegar sharpness that preservation left behind is exactly what the bland, cooling cucumber was there to answer, which is the same logic behind the cucumber sauces and sliced cucumber served with fresh salmon still.