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SALMON (a la Milanaise)
Take three or four slices of salmon, not over thick; split each one into halves, and take away the skin and bone. Dip the cutlets into sherry, lay them between sheets of buttered or oiled writing-paper which have been rubbed lightly with freshly-cut garlic, and twist the edges securely. Broil gently over a clear fire, and serve on a hot dish. Send to table with the fish a sauce prepared as follows. Take two filleted anchovies and put them into a saucepan with a slice of fresh butter, two or three young onions finely minced, and a table-spoonful of minced mushroom. Stir these over the fire till the onions begin to turn yellow, then dredge over them a table-spoonful of flour, pour in a quarter of a pint of stock, and add a table-spoonful of chilli vinegar, a spoonful of mixed mustard, a little salt and cayenne, and half a glassful of sherry. Simmer the sauce till it is smooth and thick, stir in two spoonfuls of bruised capers, boil a minute or two longer, and serve. Time to broil the salmon, fifteen to twenty minutes, according to thickness.
A papillote dish in all but name: the paper does the work, holding the sherry and garlic against the fish while the fire cooks it. Two things need attention before you start — the paper itself, and the broiling time.
- Writing-paper means parchmentVictorian writing paper was a rag paper, and greasing or oiling it helped it resist scorching over the fire. Use baking parchment, buttered on the inside, and twist or fold the edges tightly so no steam escapes.
- The broiling time is far too longFifteen to twenty minutes will take a split, boneless salmon cutlet well past dry. A half-slice of that thickness needs roughly 8-10 minutes over a moderate grill. Cooks who want a moist centre often pull salmon at around 125F, though official guidance recommends cooking fish to 145F.
- A clear fireThis means a charcoal or coal fire burnt down past the smoking stage, giving steady radiant heat with no flame. A gas grill on medium gives much the same effect for a paper parcel.
- Splitting the slicesA salmon "slice" here is a cross-cut steak. Splitting it into halves and removing skin and bone gives you two boneless pieces per steak — three or four steaks will serve three or four people.
- A quarter of a pint of stockImperial measure, so 5 fl oz, a little over half a US cup. The "half a glassful" of sherry is a wine glass of the period, around 2 fl oz, so allow about 1 fl oz.
- Mixed mustard and chilli vinegarMixed mustard is mustard powder already made up with water — prepared English mustard is the direct equivalent, and a spoonful of it is assertive. Chilli vinegar was vinegar steeped with dried red chillies; a splash of cider vinegar with a pinch of cayenne stands in, and the recipe already calls for cayenne besides.
- Anchovies and saltTwo filleted anchovies, capers and prepared mustard all carry salt. Make the sauce, taste it, and add salt only at the end.
- Keep the sauce from splittingThe flour is dredged over the softened onions and mushroom to make a rough roux; add the stock gradually and simmer gently. Once the capers go in, a minute or two is enough, as the recipe says.
In classical French usage à la milanaise means crumbed and fried with Parmesan, in the style of the Milanese cutlet, but Victorian English cookery applied the geographical tags loosely, and here the name seems to attach to the garlic, anchovy and sherry rather than to any Milanese technique. What the recipe really is is a fish cooked en papillote, a method that appears throughout nineteenth-century English books under the plainer heading of cooking "in paper" — the parcel traps the steam and the aromatics and protects delicate flesh from the fierce direct heat of a coal or charcoal grill. The alphabetical run of dozens of salmon preparations found in Victorian cookery reference books reflects a period when Scottish and Irish salmon reached English tables in quantity by rail and ice, and a household cook was expected to know a great many ways to serve it. The sharp, mustardy, caper-laden sauce belongs to the same English tradition as the bottled fish sauces of the day, and chilli vinegar was a standard cruet item in a well-stocked Victorian larder.