Home › The Principles of Cookery › Salmon, Crimped and Boiled
Salmon, Crimped and Boiled
When salmon can be obtained newly caught, it is excellent crimped and boiled. It may either be crimped whole, or cut into slices two or three inches thick. When it is to be crimped whole, take it when quite fresh, remove the gills and the inside, opening the fish as little as possible. Crimp it by making deep gashes across the body on both sides with a sharp knife, plunge the fish immediately into very cold water, and let it lie for two hours, changing the water every half hour. Or cut the fish into slices three inches thick; lay these in cold water slightly salted, and let them remain for one hour. Boil the salmon according to the directions given for boiled salmon, but remember that less time is required to boil fish when it is crimped than when it is left plain. Garnish the salmon, and serve with the same sauces as if it were plainly boiled; or the following sauce may be sent to table. Put four ounces of fresh butter into an earthen jar. Set this in a pan of boiling water, and beat it until dissolved with a table-spoonful of chopped parsley, a table-spoonful of strained lemon-juice, a little pepper, salt, and grated nutmeg. Serve in a tureen.
Crimping is a texture technique, not a flavour one, and it only works on fish that is genuinely just out of the water. Everything else here is straightforward.
- The hinge: freshnessCrimping works because the muscle is still pre-rigor and contracts sharply when it hits ice water, giving the firm, flaky curd the Victorians prized. On fish that has been out of the water more than a few hours, and on virtually all farmed salmon at retail, the gashing and soaking accomplish nothing but waterlogging. If you cannot get fish killed the same day, poach it plain.
- Cold water means coldThe original calls only for very cold water, frequently changed. Use iced water and keep it near freezing, changing it as directed; tepid water will simply leach the flesh.
- Cutting the slicesThree inches is a substantial steak. Two inches is easier to cook evenly.
- "Slightly salted"Read this as about a tablespoon of salt to a quart of water. It is there to season and firm, not to brine.
- Boiling timeSalmon is better poached at a bare shiver, around 160-170F, than at a rolling boil. Timings depend on the thickness of the cut; a three-inch steak needs appreciably longer than a two-inch one. The book's warning that crimped fish cooks faster is correct. Pull it when the centre is just set.
- The earthen jarThis is a bain-marie by another name. A heatproof bowl over simmering water does the same job, and the point is to keep the butter below the temperature at which it would separate. Whisk the lemon juice in off the direct heat.
- The sauce, in shortFour ounces of butter with parsley, lemon, pepper, salt and nutmeg makes enough for four to six portions. It is a melted butter sauce and will break if it gets too hot or sits; make it last and send it out at once.
Crimping was a standard British fishmonger's operation from the eighteenth century into the early twentieth, applied above all to cod and salmon, and the gashed "crimped cod" of Georgian and Victorian London was a recognized article of the trade. The practice depended on a supply chain that could deliver fish still stiff from the water, which is why cookery books tie it so insistently to the words "newly caught"; the deep cuts and the shock of cold water produced a firmness that was thought the mark of quality salmon. It was also controversial. Nineteenth-century humanitarian writers objected loudly to the crimping of fish while still alive. The technique eventually lost its point, and by the mid-twentieth century it had largely disappeared from British kitchens along with the trade that supported it.