Home › The Principles of Cookery › Salmon Bone, Broiled
Salmon Bone, Broiled
If when a salmon is served the flesh is not taken too closely from the bone, the latter may be cut into pieces three or four inches long, and, lightly broiled over a clear fire, will make a savoury morsel for breakfast. Salt and cayenne pepper should be strewn over it before it is broiled.
A leftovers instruction rather than a formal recipe: the bone and its clinging flesh from a served salmon, seasoned and grilled until the edges crisp. Its usefulness depends entirely on the carcass being cut up while still fresh.
- The hingeBones from a fish served at dinner should be refrigerated at once and grilled within a day. Cooked salmon left at room temperature overnight is the one point where this dish goes wrong, and no amount of broiling repairs it.
- "Broiled over a clear fire"A clear fire means glowing coals with no flame or smoke. The modern equivalent is a preheated overhead broiler at its highest setting, or a very hot ridged pan; the pieces need only 3-4 minutes a side to blister and heat through, since the flesh is already cooked.
- Which bonesThis works with the backbone and rib cage of a large whole salmon or a bone-in centre cut, where a decent seam of flesh remains along the spine. The collar and the meat behind the head are the best part of it. A supermarket fillet leaves nothing to work with.
- SeasoningSalt and cayenne only, strewn dry over the pieces. A brush of oil helps the surface crisp and keeps it from welding to the grill bars.
- Eating itThis is finger food. Warn anyone at the table that the pin bones are fine and numerous; the flesh comes away in flakes and shreds rather than in portions.
- YieldOne large salmon carcass yields enough for one or two people at breakfast, alongside toast. Treat it as a bonus, not a course you can plan around.
Broiled bones as a breakfast or supper savoury were a recognised category in nineteenth-century English cookery, most familiar as devilled bones from a roast joint or a game bird, commonly sharpened with cayenne, mustard or a peppery sauce. Applying the same treatment to the frame of a salmon made sense in households where a whole fish was poached and sent to table intact, and where the carver might be expected to leave the bone dressed rather than scraped bare. The instruction is also a quiet reproach to the cook or the carver, since the whole thing only works if the flesh was not taken too closely off in the first place.