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SALMON, BAKED (another way)
Take a moderate-sized salmon, scale and clean it, and wipe it dry. Rub it well inside and out with a mixture of pepper and salt, and fill it with a little good veal forcemeat. Sew the body up securely with soft cotton to keep in the forcemeat. Lay a stand, such as is used to bake meat upon, in a dripping-tin large enough to hold the fish; put the salmon upon it, dredge with flour, and put little pieces of butter here and there upon it. Pour a little water into the tin, and bake the fish in a well-heated oven. When the flesh will leave the bone easily, if pressed with the finger, it is done enough. Send boiled potatoes to table with the fish, and serve melted butter, flavoured with lemon-juice, in a tureen. Time to bake a moderate-sized fish, one hour. Probable cost, 1s. or more per pound. Sufficient for six or eight persons.
A whole stuffed salmon baked on a rack, in the style of a roast. The Victorian instruction to test with a finger is better guidance than the stated hour.
- Trust the touch, not the clockAn hour will overcook most fish sold today. Go by the internal temperature of the thickest part of the flesh, around 125-130F, or by the original's own test: the flesh parts from the bone under light pressure. A stuffed fish may be done before the hour is up, so start checking well before then.
- The stuffing sets the paceVeal forcemeat is raw ground meat and must reach 160F, which is hotter than the fish wants. Either cook the forcemeat through before stuffing, or accept that the belly flesh around it will be well done.
- "A well-heated oven"The book gives no temperatures; something in the region of 400-425F is a reasonable modern equivalent. The dripping-tin and the splash of water were probably there to protect the underside from the fierce bottom heat of a coal range; in a modern oven the water mostly steams away and can be omitted.
- Stand and dripping-tinA wire rack in a shallow roasting pan. Oil the rack or line it with a sling of parchment or foil, or the skin will weld to it and the fish will tear when you lift it.
- Soft cottonUndyed cotton kitchen twine, or short skewers laced with twine. Count your stitches so you can find them all before serving.
- "Melted butter"In this book melted butter means a thickened butter sauce - butter worked into a little flour and water or fish stock and simmered smooth - not simply butter liquefied. Plain drawn butter will separate in the tureen.
- Moderate-sized salmonNo weight is given; something in the region of 5-10 lb whole would be consistent with six to eight servings and an hour's baking. A whole farmed salmon of that size is easy to buy; ask for it scaled and gutted with the head on, since the head helps hold the shape.
- The cost noteOne shilling a pound was a substantial sum in the late nineteenth century, which is why the book treats a whole salmon as a company dish rather than everyday food.
Cassell's gives several methods for salmon because in the late nineteenth century it was still a strongly seasonal luxury in Britain, taken from rivers such as the Tay and the Severn and sent to market packed in ice. Baking a whole fish stuffed with veal forcemeat treats salmon as a roast rather than as a poached fish, and reflects the older English habit of forcemeat-stuffing almost anything with a cavity; the accompaniment of boiled potatoes and a thickened butter sauce sharpened with lemon is a standard Victorian service for fish. The "probable cost" figures per pound are one of the clearest signals in the book of how expensive river salmon remained before refrigerated transport and, much later, farming made it commonplace.