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SALMON SALAD (another way)
This is an entremet which is recurred to on economical principles when there is any salmon left. Let the salmon cool, and cut it nicely into fancy shapes. Decorate these with fillets of anchovies, pickled cucumbers, fine capers, and chopped eggs, to which add a few hearts of lettuce. Then make the sauce as follows. If you have some jelly, make a kind of mayonnaise. Put three spoonfuls of oil, and one spoonful of vinegar, with an equal quantity of jelly, seasoned with pepper, salt, and chopped herbs. Beat all these over ice till they are a white colour, and decorate your salad with this mayonnaise and a few lumps of jelly cut in different shapes. Make no decorations that are liable to tumble down. A plain, good salad will be eaten in preference to any other. Grand decorations are merely intended to ornament the centre of the table: what is to be eaten must be plain and good. Above all things, avoid introducing artificial colours. Nature has supplied you with nasturtium, red and white beetroot, beans of two colours (white and green), chervil, tarragon, burnet, etc.; besides, you have white or yellow omelets. In summer-time you have asparagus, artichoke-bottoms, cauliflowers, etc.
A leftovers dish dressed up as a cold entremet. The only technical step is the sauce, which is not a true mayonnaise at all but an emulsion set with aspic.
- The hinge: beat the sauce over iceThree parts oil to one of vinegar with an equal quantity of melted aspic will only turn pale and thick if it is worked cold, as the gelatine begins to set and traps the oil. Have the jelly liquid but barely warm, set the bowl in ice water, and whisk steadily until it lightens; if it sets solid before it emulsifies, warm it briefly and start again.
- "If you have some jelly"This means savoury aspic, in Victorian kitchens a by-product of the stockpot clarified with egg white. Powdered gelatine dissolved in well-flavoured fish or chicken stock will stand in; a sachet (about 7 g) per 2 cups gives a light set, and rather more is needed if the jelly is to be firm enough to cut into the decorative lumps called for.
- EntremetHere it means a cold side dish served between or alongside the main courses, not a dessert. Read it as a composed salad for a buffet or cold table.
- SpoonfulsFor a sauce of this kind a tablespoon is likely meant: about 3 tbsp oil to 1 tbsp vinegar. "An equal quantity of jelly" is ambiguous and may mean equal to the vinegar or to the oil and vinegar together; start at the smaller reading and add more jelly if the sauce will not lighten.
- Fine capersNonpareilles, the smallest grade. Salt-packed capers and salt-packed anchovy fillets both want rinsing and, for the anchovies, a short soak before they go on the plate.
- Chopped eggsHard-boiled and chopped, whites and yolks sometimes sieved separately for contrast. Neither this nor the sauce uses raw egg.
- SalmonCooked salmon, chilled thoroughly before cutting so it holds a clean shape. A poached side or leftover baked fillet works; canned salmon does not cut into fancy shapes. Keep the assembled salad refrigerated and eat it the day it is made, as aspic at room temperature is a good growth medium.
- The herbsBurnet, listed among the garnishes, is salad burnet, a cucumber-scented leaf now uncommon in shops. Chervil and tarragon are the more available substitutes and suit salmon better than parsley.
Cassell's calls this an entremet, one of the dishes that filled out a Victorian table between the hot courses and made use of what the kitchen already had. Salmon was seasonal and expensive but arrived in large pieces, so a poached side could leave cold remains to be used up, and the aspic-bound sauce is the classic way of turning cold fish into something that looks deliberate. The closing lecture is the interesting part: the author is arguing against the elaborate, inedible showpiece cookery of the period, and specifically against artificial colouring. That was a live concern in the later nineteenth century, when green pickles were sometimes brightened with copper salts and confectionery with mineral and aniline dyes; the recommended alternatives here are beetroot, nasturtium, coloured beans and the yellow of egg. The advice to "make no decorations that are liable to tumble down" is the voice of someone who has carried a garnished dish across a dining room.