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Salmon, Tinned, Hot, with Sauce
Take the fish from the tin, and remove all the bones; flake in small pieces, and drain. Put an ounce of butter in a small stewpan with a table-spoonful of flour; cook until smooth but not brown; add half a pint of milk, and stir till it thickens. Season with salt and cayenne pepper. Place the salmon in the sauce, and let it get thoroughly hot through; garnish with capers and hard-boiled eggs.
A plain white sauce with tinned salmon folded through it, meant as a quick supper dish. The only thing that goes wrong is overworking the fish.
- Fold, do not stirThe salmon is already cooked in the tin; it needs only to be warmed through in the finished sauce over low heat, two or three minutes. Stirring it about breaks the flakes into a paste.
- Half a pint of milkAn imperial half pint is 10 fl oz, about 1 1/4 US cups. With 1 oz butter and a tablespoon of flour this gives a pouring sauce; use 8 fl oz if you want it thick enough to hold on toast.
- StewpanSimply a small saucepan with straight sides. Any 1-quart pan works, ideally heavy-based so the roux does not catch.
- Cook until smooth but not brownTwo minutes over moderate heat is enough to lose the raw flour taste while keeping the sauce white. Add the milk in stages, whisking, to avoid lumps.
- The bonesThe soft vertebrae in tinned salmon are entirely edible and a useful source of calcium, so removing them is optional. Any hard fin bones are worth picking out.
- DrainingReserve the liquid from the tin rather than discarding it, and use a spoonful or two to loosen the sauce at the end; it carries a good deal of flavour.
- CayenneSeason lightly and taste at the end. Tinned salmon is salted in the can, and the amount varies between brands.
- YieldA standard 213 g tin with this quantity of sauce serves two over toast or rice, three as part of a larger meal.
Tinned salmon was one of the great cheap protein staples of the late nineteenth century, arriving in British and European kitchens in quantity from the canneries of the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia from the 1870s onward. Cassell's, aimed squarely at middle-class households working to a budget, gives it a whole run of entries: salads, cutlets, moulds and dishes like this one. The treatment here is pure kitchen economy dressed up a little, since a tin of fish plus a basic white sauce and a garnish of capers and hard-boiled egg produces something presentable enough for a supper table. The sauce itself is the standard English white sauce of the period, made by the butter-and-flour roux method that Victorian cookery writing shared with French practice.