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Salmon, Boiled
The middle cut of the salmon is the best. A whole salmon is seldom sent to table unless the party be large. Scrape the scales carefully, cut off the fins and gills, and cleanse the fish thoroughly from blood. Put as much cold water into the fish-kettle as will entirely cover the fish, and with it six ounces of salt to each gallon of water. Bring it quickly to the boil, and skim carefully; then put in the fish, and let it simmer gently; boil moderately fast, if it is a small fish and thick, until done enough. Take it up as soon as it is done, and if it is not immediately wanted lay it on a fish-strainer, and cover with hot cloths. If it is allowed to remain in the water after it is done enough the flavour will be spoilt; unless it is thoroughly done, it will be uneatable. In order to ascertain whether it is done enough, press the flesh lightly with the finger, and if it leaves the bone easily it is done. Serve on a neatly-folded napkin, garnish with lemon and parsley, horse-radish and fennel, or fennel and red currants, and send shrimp, lobster, parsley, anchovy, or Dutch sauce to table with it. A dish of sliced cucumber is usually served with boiled salmon. If lobster sauce is chosen, the salmon should be garnished with the coral. Time: experience alone can teach a cook how long to boil fish, as it varies so much in size and thickness; as a general rule, eight minutes per pound may be allowed for thick salmon, six minutes per pound for thin salmon. Probable cost, 1s. to 1s. 4d. per pound when in full season. Sufficient, one pound and a quarter for three persons.
A method rather than a formula: the whole technique rests on a heavily salted bath, a gentle simmer, and lifting the fish out the moment it is done. Two things need translating for a modern cook — the salt ratio and the doneness test.
- The brine is the pointSix ounces of salt to the gallon works out at roughly 170 g in an imperial gallon (4.5 litres), about 3.7 per cent — close to seawater strength and far saltier than most modern poaching liquid. It seasons the flesh as it cooks and helps limit the white albumin that leaches into the water. Use coarse salt and dissolve it before the water boils.
- Doneness by the old test overcooks itFlesh that "leaves the bone easily" is thoroughly cooked, likely 140F/60C or above at the thickest point, which many modern cooks find dry and chalky in salmon. Modern practice often pulls salmon at 120-130F/49-54C, when the centre is still translucent and the flakes barely separate. The instruction that it will be "uneatable" unless thoroughly done may reflect Victorian caution with fish of uncertain freshness.
- TimingEight minutes per pound for a thick cut and six for a thin one is generous by current standards; a 2 lb centre cut at a bare simmer may reach the low end of the modern range in 12-15 minutes. Judge by an instant-read thermometer rather than by the clock.
- No fish kettleA long lidded roasting pan set over two burners does the same job, or a deep saute pan for a single cut. Wrap the piece in a double layer of cheesecloth with the ends left long, or set it on a strip of parchment, so it can be lifted out without breaking.
- Simmer, never boilThe instruction to "boil moderately fast" for a small thick fish should be ignored. A rolling boil bursts the muscle fibres and drives white albumin out of the flesh; hold the water at 170-180F/77-82C, barely shivering.
- Garnishes and saucesFennel here means the herb fronds, not the bulb. "Dutch sauce" is hollandaise under its older English name. The coral is the roe of a hen lobster, which turns red on cooking and was pounded into lobster sauce or scattered as garnish — rarely available now, and the sauce is fine without it.
- YieldA pound and a quarter for three people assumes bone-in weight and a table with several other dishes. For a modern main course allow 6-8 oz of boneless fillet per person.
- Serving coldSalmon poached this way and cooled in a covered dish, not in its liquid, is the basis of the cold salmon with cucumber that was a fixture of English summer luncheons. The book's warning against leaving it in the water applies just as much when cooling.
Boiled salmon appears in Cassell's because in late-Victorian Britain salmon was both a luxury and, for a few months a year, unavoidable — netted from the Tay, Severn and Irish rivers and moved to London markets on ice by rail, which is why the book can quote a confident per-pound price for fish "in full season". The quoted 1s. to 1s. 4d. a pound was real money for a household cook, and explains the insistence that the middle cut is best and that a whole fish is only sent up for a large party. The pairing with cucumber and with lobster or shrimp sauce is thoroughly English and older than this book; so is the folded napkin under the fish, which absorbed the water that inevitably drained from it. The claim, often repeated, that apprentices in London once had clauses in their indentures limiting how often they could be fed salmon is traditional rather than documented, but it preserves a genuine memory of a time before pollution and weirs made the fish scarce in English rivers.