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Salmon Cutlets, Broiled En Papillotes
Prepare the cutlets as in preceding recipe. Lay each slice on half a sheet of buttered or oiled writing-paper, put a similar sheet over it, and twist the edges securely together. Put the cutlets on a hot gridiron, and broil gently over a clear fire. Move them occasionally to keep them from burning. They may be served in the papers or not, as preferred. Unless the appearance is very good it will be better that the paper should be removed, and this must be done with great care. Time to broil the salmon, fifteen to twenty minutes, according to thickness.
A straightforward paper-wrapped grill that predates foil by decades. The technique still works, but the paper and the timing both need translating.
- Writing-paper means parchmentWriting-paper -- not modern printer paper, which is sized and bleached and has no place near food. Use baking parchment cut into halves of a standard sheet.
- Butter or oil both sides of the paperButter or oil the paper -- The instruction to butter or oil is not decoration. Dry parchment scorches through and sticks to the skin side of the fish, which is exactly what ruins the presentation the recipe worries about.
- Sealing the edges"Twist the edges securely together" is probably best done by folding the two sheets over in a series of overlapping crimps all round, working from one corner. The parcel needs to hold steam; a loose edge lets the juices run onto the fire.
- Time is too longTime is long by modern taste -- fifteen to twenty minutes assumes salmon cooked right through. Cooks who prefer it less done will want nearer 8 to 10 minutes total in the parcel over medium heat, turning once, bearing in mind that food-safety guidance calls for 145F at the centre.
- A clear fire, and how to fake it"A clear fire" is coals burned down past flame, with no smoke or flaring, so the paper browns rather than ignites. On a gas grill use medium with the lid down; on a cast-iron grill pan use medium-low and expect the parcel to colour.
- Move them occasionallyThis is the hinge. Paper scorches from a single hot spot, so shift and turn the parcels every couple of minutes rather than leaving them to sit.
- YieldOne cutlet per person, served in the parcel or out of it as preferred.
Cooking en papillote is French in name and technique, and it appears in Victorian English cookery books in the second half of the nineteenth century; Cassell's treats it as one of the standard treatments of a fish cutlet rather than a novelty. The paper does two things: it traps the steam and fat so the fish essentially poaches in its own juices, and it shields delicate flesh from the fierce direct heat of a coal-fired gridiron. Salmon was still a seasonal river fish in Britain when this book was compiled, and the whole point of the paper is to lose none of it. The parcel survived the arrival of the gas oven and, once aluminium foil became a household staple in the mid-twentieth century, was quietly reinvented as the foil packet, which does the same job with less charm and less risk of catching light.