Home › The Principles of Cookery › SALMON, BOILED (a la Marechal)
SALMON, BOILED (a la Marechal)
When the fish is cleaned, strew salt on both sides of it; two hours after, perfectly wash, drain, and lay it upon a fish-strainer well buttered; put it into the kettle with a good and well-seasoned mirepoix, moistened with three bottles of champagne. Place it over a quick fire, and when it boils throw the liquor well upon the fish; cover, and put it into a slow oven to simmer. Every twenty minutes see that the boiling is slow and regular, and mask the fish with the mirepoix; give it an hour and a half's boiling; then take it up, cover it with butter made lukewarm and mixed with eight yolks of eggs passed through a tamis. Strew over it bread-crumbs mixed with one-fourth of their quantity of Parmesan cheese, grated, pressing them on the salmon with the blade of a knife, and scattering drops of melted butter upon them, and give the whole a fine colour in the oven. Dish without disarranging its surface, and surround it with a RAGOUT FINANCIERE with a part of the same served in a sauce-boat.
A grand-service braise from the era when a whole salmon arrived at table lacquered and gilded. Most of the technique holds up; the timing does not.
- The timing is the problemAn hour and a half of simmering will reduce salmon to dry flakes. A whole fish braised in a low oven is done when the thickest part reaches 125-130F, which for a 6-8 lb fish is likely closer to 35-50 minutes. Check early and often with a probe.
- Mirepoix meant something elseIn nineteenth-century French practice a mirepoix was a full braising preparation: diced carrot, onion, celery and often raw ham or bacon, sweated in butter with bay, thyme and peppercorns, used as a bed and a moistener. It is not the bare vegetable dice the word means now, and here it is both cooking medium and the coating that keeps the fish from drying.
- Three bottles of champagneAbout 2.25 litres. The point is a dry sparkling wine's acidity, not its bubbles, which vanish in the first minute of heat. Any dry white in the same volume behaves identically, and enough to half-submerge the fish is plenty.
- The salting stepTwo hours of dry salt on both sides firms the flesh and seasons it, though in that time the salt penetrates only the outer layers. Rinse and pat thoroughly dry afterwards or the braising liquor may be too salty to use in a sauce.
- Fish-strainer and kettleA long oval fish kettle with a perforated lifting plate. Without one, use a roasting pan and a doubled sling of buttered cheesecloth or foil, since a whole braised salmon cannot be lifted with a spatula without breaking.
- "Slow oven"Roughly 275-300F; the book gives no figure and Victorian usage of the term varies. "Quick fire" at the start simply means bringing it to a boil rapidly on the stovetop before it goes into the oven.
- The yolk glazeEight yolks whisked into lukewarm — not hot — butter and pushed through a tamis (a drum sieve; a fine strainer works) gives a smooth glaze. Butter above about 140F will scramble the yolks. The crumb-and-Parmesan crust then needs only a few minutes under high heat or a broiler to colour; the fish is already cooked.
- Ragout financièreClassically cockscombs, cocks' kidneys, quenelles, mushrooms, truffle and olives in a Madeira-fortified brown sauce. A modern rendering keeps the quenelles, mushrooms, truffle and Madeira and quietly drops the rest.
- YieldThe recipe does not state a size of fish; a whole salmon dressed this way would serve a dozen or more as a centrepiece course.
The suffix — corrected below.