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Salmon Moulded in Jelly
Soak an ounce of gelatine in as much cold water as will cover it. When it has absorbed the water, put it into a saucepan with a pint of clear stock pleasantly flavoured. Stir the gelatine over the fire till it dissolves, then pour it out, and let it cool. Whisk the white of an egg with a table-spoonful of cold water and a tea-spoonful of tarragon vinegar. Stir this briskly into the jelly, and when scum begins to form leave the liquid untouched, and let it boil for ten minutes. Put it by the side of the fire to settle ten minutes longer, and then strain through a jelly-bag till it is clear and bright. Boil a pound and a quarter of salmon in very little water. As soon as it is done enough take it up, and when cold cut it into one-inch squares. Pour a little of the jelly into a mould, and arrange some of the pieces of salmon in this, remembering to put the skin and the pink flesh alternately to the outside of the mould. Let the jelly set, then put in another layer of salmon; cover this with jelly, and let it also set, and repeat until the mould is full. Turn the jelly out when it is quite cold. Time, some hours to stiffen the jelly. Probable cost, 2s. 6d. Cooked thus it is greatly relished as a breakfast or luncheon dish.
A Victorian salmon aspic, built up in layers so the fish stays suspended. Two things decide whether it works: a properly clarified jelly and salmon that is poached rather than boiled hard.
- Do not stir the raftOnce the whisked egg white begins to form scum on the surface, leave it strictly alone. The coagulating white traps the cloudy particles; stirring breaks the raft and you will never get a bright jelly. Ladle the liquid out gently rather than pouring the pan out in one go.
- Gelatine strengthOne ounce (28 g) of powdered gelatine to one pint (20 fl oz / 570 ml) of stock gives a firm jelly that will stand up when unmoulded — deliberately stiffer than a spoonable dessert jelly. Modern powdered gelatine is roughly four 7 g sachets; sheet gelatine of the same weight behaves comparably. Old gelatine varied in strength, so if in doubt set a spoonful on a cold saucer before committing.
- Jelly-bagA double thickness of damp muslin or a clean cotton cloth in a sieve does the same work. Let it drip without squeezing or pressing, which forces sediment through.
- Season above the mark"Pleasantly flavoured" stock means seasoned to taste while hot. Cold jelly reads noticeably blander than warm liquid, so salt and the tarragon vinegar should both be a shade assertive at the tasting stage.
- Poach, don't boilA pound and a quarter of salmon in "very little water" is really a covered poach. Bring the water barely to a tremble and hold the fish 8-12 minutes depending on thickness; salmon boiled hard turns dry and chalky and will crumble instead of cutting into neat one-inch squares. Cool it completely before cutting.
- Layer in a cold mouldChill each layer of jelly until tacky-set before adding fish, or the pieces float and the layers merge. Allow a mould or loaf tin of roughly two pints (about 1.1 litres) for this quantity of jelly and fish. The instruction about turning skin and pink flesh alternately to the outside is purely decorative — the pattern is what shows once it is turned out.
- Setting and unmoulding"Some hours" means at least four in the refrigerator, and overnight is better. Dip the mould briefly in hot water and invert onto a cold wetted plate.
- YieldServes four to six as a cold luncheon dish. Keep it refrigerated and eat within two days; it is cooked fish in a moist jelly and will not sit about.
Cold moulded fish in aspic belonged to a very particular corner of the Victorian household: the cold breakfast sideboard and the cold luncheon table, where a dish could be made the day before and carried in ready. Its rise depended on commercial gelatine, which by the later nineteenth century came packaged and reliable enough that a cook need not always boil down calves' feet or use isinglass to get a setting stock — the recipe simply assumes an ounce bought by weight. The clarifying method here, whisking in egg white and letting it rise as a raft, is the classical consommé technique applied to jelly, and it is still used in professional kitchens. At 2s. 6d. this was not a cheap dish, which fits salmon's standing as a costly fish for much of the century: a mould that displays neat squares of pink fish through clear jelly made a show of the fish it contained.