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Salmon, Baked, with Caper or Tomato Sauce
Take two slices from the middle of a moderate-sized salmon. Wash them lightly in salted water, and dry them perfectly in a clean cloth. Sprinkle a little pepper, salt, and grated nutmeg over them, and, if liked, add a shallot or two or three spring onions finely minced. Place the slices of salmon side by side in a baking-dish, lay three ounces of butter in small pieces here and there upon them, and put the dish into a moderately-heated oven. Baste the fish frequently, and when it is done enough drain it, lay it upon a dish, pour a small portion of caper sauce or tomato sauce over it, and send more to table in a tureen. Tomato sauce is particularly to be recommended for salmon dressed in this way. Time to bake, about three-quarters of an hour. Probable cost, salmon, from 1s. per pound. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A straightforward baked salmon that needs only one correction, and it is a large one: the timing belongs to an era that cooked fish until it flaked into dryness.
- The baking time is the hingeThree-quarters of an hour will turn two salmon steaks chalky and grey. Thick centre-cut steaks of 1 to 1½ inches want roughly 12 to 18 minutes, until the thickest part reads 125-130F and the flesh is still faintly translucent at the bone.
- "Moderately-heated oven"Conventionally read as roughly 350F, though the book gives no figure. For the shorter modern time, 375-400F gives better colour on the butter and edges without overcooking the interior.
- Two slices from the middleThese are centre-cut steaks, cut across the fish through the backbone, not fillets. A fishmonger will cut them; ask for even thickness so both cook at the same rate. Fillets of similar weight work but cook faster still.
- Butter quantityThree ounces is 6 tablespoons, generous for two steaks and intended to supply basting liquid. Half that is ample if you baste twice rather than "frequently".
- The salted-water washA brief rinse and thorough drying is standard handling in period fish recipes. Drying matters for browning; the rinse is optional with fresh fish.
- Nutmeg and shallotGrated nutmeg on fish is a genuinely Victorian touch and works in small quantity — a few rasps, not a teaspoon. The minced shallot or spring onion goes under and around the fish so it does not scorch on top.
- The saucesCaper sauce here means a butter or velouté-based sauce with capers, not caper vinegar alone. The tomato sauce of this period is a cooked, sieved, lightly thickened sauce rather than anything resembling pasta sauce or ketchup.
- YieldFive or six portions from two steaks assumes a large fish and Victorian service alongside other dishes. Two steaks from a moderate salmon realistically serve three or four as a main course.
Cassell's was compiled in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when railway ice transport had brought Scottish and Irish salmon within reach of English town kitchens — hence the confident note on price, "from 1s. per pound," which was still a good deal of money for a working household. Caper sauce was one of several English accompaniments to boiled or baked salmon, alongside lobster, shrimp and anchovy sauces, though it is most firmly associated with boiled mutton; the recommendation of tomato sauce instead may suggest that tomatoes had become a more familiar larder item in Britain, but a single line in a recipe will not carry much weight either way. Baking salmon in steaks with butter was the domestic alternative to poaching a whole fish in a long kettle.