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Salmon Soup
No. 1.--If the fish is very fresh this soup may be partially made with the liquor in which the salmon was boiled, though a quart of veal stock made from bones and flavoured with vegetables will answer the purpose better. Take the remains of the salmon. Lift the flesh from the bones while it is still hot, and remove the skin. Supposing there is a pound and a half of salmon, pick out the best pieces, tear them into flakes, and then lay them aside. Put the rest in a mortar along with any remains of lobster there may be, especially the coral, a little cream, a tea-spoonful of essence of anchovy, and two hard-boiled egg-yolks. Pound these ingredients to a smooth paste. Dissolve two ounces of butter in a saucepan; mix with this as much flour as it will take, beat it quickly with a wooden spoon till it is smooth and slightly brown, and moisten with a portion of the stock. Stir in the salmon paste, and add as much stock as will make the soup of the consistency of thick cream. Season the soup with pepper, salt, and cayenne; throw in the flakes of salmon that were set aside, let them get thoroughly hot without boiling, and serve immediately. No. 2.--Take a pound and a half of fresh salmon. Raise the flesh from the bone, divide it into neat fillets, and fry these in hot fat till they are done enough. Put a quart of fish or veal stock into a stewpan with the heart of a lettuce finely shredded and half a pint of young green peas. Simmer all gently for an hour, then rub the soup through a fine hair sieve. Put it back into the stewpan, season with salt and pepper, put into it the fried fillets of salmon, and let them simmer until they are heated through. Add another half-pint of peas boiled separately, simmer all together for a few minutes, and serve. Time altogether, two hours. Probable cost, 1s. 6d. per pint when salmon is plentiful. Sufficient for five or six persons.
Two distinct soups under one heading: the first a leftovers dish built on cooked salmon and a pounded thickening paste, the second a fresh-fish soup with peas and lettuce. Both are quick once the stock exists.
- The hinge: never let it boilIn No. 1 the flakes are reheated only until hot through. Cooked salmon that returns to a simmer sheds moisture and turns dry and cottony, and the egg-and-cream paste will split. Keep the pan below a shiver.
- Imperial quartCassell's quart is 40 fl oz, about 5 US cups or 1.14 litres, not the 32 oz US quart. A pint is 20 fl oz; the half-pint of peas is therefore about 1¼ cups.
- Essence of anchovyA thin bottled anchovy sauce, closest today to Geo. Watkins Anchovy Essence. Colatura di alici or a scant teaspoon of anchovy paste loosened with water does the same job: salt and savour, not fish flavour you can name.
- Lobster coralThe dark green roe of a hen lobster, which turns coral red on cooking and was prized as both colour and thickener. Supermarket lobster is usually sold cooked and may well be male; if there is no coral, the soup simply loses its pink cast.
- "As much flour as it will take"This is a roux by feel. Two ounces of butter will absorb roughly two ounces (about ½ cup) of flour before it stops being pourable. Cook it to the pale-blond stage the text calls "slightly brown" — a minute or two, no more.
- Mortar and hair sieveThe pounding in No. 1 and the sieving in No. 2 are both food-processor work now. For No. 2, blitz then pass through a fine mesh sieve; the point is to remove pea skins and lettuce fibre, so do not skip the straining.
- "Done enough" filletsPresumably cooked opaque throughout. Since the fillets then simmer again in the soup, fry them just short — the centre barely set — so they are not overcooked twice.
- Peas in two stagesHalf the peas cook out into the base for sweetness and body; the second half go in whole at the end for texture and colour. Frozen peas are fine for both, and need only a few minutes for the finishing batch.
- Yield and costFive or six servings as written. The 1s. 6d. per pint is a period price note and tells you salmon was seasonal and, out of season, expensive.
Salmon soup of this kind belongs to the Victorian household economy that Cassell's was written to serve: No. 1 is frankly a way of using up the remains of a boiled salmon, coral and all, rather than a dish planned from scratch. Before the railways and ice, salmon was intensely seasonal and regional, glutting the market in late spring and early summer and vanishing the rest of the year — hence the caveat about cost "when salmon is plentiful," and hence the pairing in No. 2 with young peas and lettuce hearts, which come into season at the same moment. The thickening method in No. 1 is to pound cooked flesh with egg yolk, cream and shellfish coral in a mortar and then bind it into a roux; the essence of anchovy is a distinctly English touch, one of a family of bottled savoury sauces that Victorian cooks reached for wherever a dish needed depth without an identifiable flavour.