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Salmon Bisque
Open and turn out the contents of a can of salmon several hours before you are ready to make the soup. Pick the salmon to pieces with a silver fork and remove all the skin and bones. Put into an agate vessel with enough boiling water to cover, and let it simmer gently for about thirty minutes. Drain the water off and break the salmon to a soft mass. Heat a pint of milk in a double boiler with half a cupful of cracker crumbs and a pinch of soda. Stir in a pint of veal stock that has been well seasoned, and thicken with 2 tablespoonfuls of flour rubbed into 2 of butter.
When it becomes thick and smooth, stir in the minced fish; season well with paprika and salt, and serve.
This is fine when made of fresh boiled salmon.
A late-Victorian creamed fish soup built on canned salmon, milk and veal stock. Most of the fussier steps are answers to problems modern canned salmon no longer has.
- Air the can, then skip the simmerOpening the can hours ahead and boiling the fish for thirty minutes were most likely aimed at driving off the tinny, oily smell of early canning; airing canned goods before use was standard advice at the time. Today's canned salmon needs neither: drain it, flake it, and add it at the end. If you do simmer it, five minutes is ample before it turns to paste.
- Agate vesselAgate (or graniteware) is enamelled steel. The point is a non-reactive surface, since bare iron or copper discolours fish and milk. Any stainless or enamelled pan does the job, and the silver fork is the same idea.
- The pinch of sodaBaking soda was added to milk to keep it from curdling when acidic stock or fish went in. A very small pinch is harmless; more than that gives a soapy taste. Warming the milk gently and adding the stock off the boil works better.
- Cracker crumbsCrushed soda crackers or unsalted saltines, not sweet cracker crumbs. Half a cup thickens as much as it flavours, so account for it before judging the roux.
- Veal stockA light, gelatinous, almost neutral stock. Unsalted chicken stock is the practical stand-in; a light fish stock makes the soup more emphatically of the sea than the original intends.
- The thickeningTwo tablespoons flour rubbed into two of butter is a raw beurre manie, whisked into the hot liquid in small pieces. Let it cook two or three minutes at a bare simmer to lose the floury taste, and do not let it boil hard once the milk is in.
- Bones and skinThe soft vertebrae in canned salmon are edible and a good source of calcium, but they are gritty in a bisque. Removing them, as directed, is worth the few minutes.
- YieldA pint of milk, a pint of stock and one can of salmon give roughly five to six cups, enough for four to six first-course servings. The recipe does not specify a type; paprika of this period is usually the sweet Hungarian-style sort, used as much for colour as heat.