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Snipes, Salmi Of
Take the remains of cold dressed snipes, and cut off the meat in neat slices. Bruise the bones and trimmings in a mortar, and put them into a stewpan with two shallots, two cloves, a slice of lean uncooked ham, a carrot, a table-spoonful of chopped mushrooms, half a dozen peppercorns, and a pint of stock. Let these ingredients stew gently together for an hour; strain the sauce, and return it to the saucepan with a slice of fresh butter rolled in flour, and half a tumblerful of claret or Madeira, and any remains of toast covered with trail that there may be. Simmer the sauce again until it coats the spoon. Put the slices of snipe into a clean saucepan, strain the sauce over them, and heat them gently by the side of the fire without allowing them to boil. Put the meat on a hot dish, pour the sauce over it, and serve very hot. Garnish the dish with fried sippets. Time, an hour and a half to two hours. Probable cost, 1s., exclusive of the birds. Sufficient for three or four persons.
A salmi is a two-stage dish: the carcasses of already-roasted birds are stewed down into a concentrated sauce, and the carved meat is only warmed through in it. Everything depends on that second stage staying below a simmer.
- Never let the meat boilCold roast game reheated at a boil turns dry and stringy in minutes. The sauce should be finished and thickened first, then strained over the slices and brought only to the point where it steams rather than simmers, and held there a few minutes.
- Sourcing the birdsSnipe are wild game, sold by game dealers in season in the UK and not available commercially in the US. Quail, woodcock, or a brace of squab give the same structure, though quail are milder; the recipe does not say how many birds it started from, but three or four small ones suit the pint of sauce.
- The trail"Trail" is the intestine of the snipe, traditionally left in the bird during roasting and spread on the toast beneath it. It is intensely flavoured and acts as the sauce's liaison. If your birds were drawn, the sauce will be leaner and thinner; compensate with a little more butter and flour.
- Half a tumblerfulA Victorian tumbler held roughly 8-10 fl oz, so half is 4-5 fl oz — about half a cup of claret or Madeira. Add it to the strained sauce and reduce, or the raw wine will dominate.
- Butter rolled in flourThis is beurre manié: about 1 tbsp softened butter kneaded with 2 tsp flour, whisked into the hot sauce in small pieces.
- Coats the spoonThe finishing point is nappé: the sauce holds a film and a finger drawn through it leaves a clear track.
- SippetsSmall triangles or fingers of bread fried in butter or clarified fat until crisp, arranged round the edge of the dish. Cut them from a dense white loaf; modern soft sandwich bread collapses in the fat.
- Timing and yieldThe hour of stewing plus reduction is the bulk of the ninety minutes to two hours quoted. The book gives three or four servings, which probably assumes the salmi as one course among several rather than a main plate.
Salmi (also salmis) is generally taken to be a shortening of the French salmigondis, a word for a ragout of mixed meats, though the derivation is not certain; by the nineteenth century it was used in professional kitchens for a sauce built from the bones and trimmings of roasted game birds, with the carved flesh warmed in it at the last moment. A salmi exists to use up the remains of yesterday's roast, and the note "probable cost, 1s., exclusive of the birds" makes the accounting plain. Snipe were a common enough game bird in Victorian Britain to warrant their own dictionary entry, and were traditionally cooked undrawn, the trail spread on toast beneath the bird; the instruction here to put that leftover toast into the sauce follows from that practice.