Darne of Salmon
1 onion minced 2 carrots minced 2 tablespoons minced parsley 1 tablespoon peppercorns 1/2 teaspoon salt 3 tablespoons butter 1 pint claret 1 pint thin broth Darne of salmon is the middle cut, there are but two and sometimes three from a large fish. Lay in a stew-pan on a bed of vegetables, dredge with the salt and pour over this the claret and broth. Dot with the butter and cover with buttered paper. Bring quickly to a boil and simmer very gently for one hour. Place on a hot platter, remove the skin and serve with a Hollandaise Sauce.
A braised salmon steak in the classic French manner — a bed of aromatics, wine and stock, and a paper lid. Two things need attention: the cooking time and the sheer quantity of peppercorns.
- What a darne isA darne is a thick cross-cut steak taken from the middle of the fish, bone in. Ask for a center-cut steak cut across the whole fish rather than a fillet portion; a fillet will fall apart under this treatment. Note that the recipe's own description -- only two, sometimes three, from a large fish -- implies a considerably thicker and heavier piece than the modern one- to two-inch steak.
- The hour is far too longAn hour of simmering will leave the salmon dry, chalky and flaking apart — the original assumes a much larger and fattier whole-fish cut than most modern steaks. Salmon is done at 125-130F at the bone, which for a 1.5-inch darne in barely-trembling liquid is roughly 15 to 20 minutes. Check early with an instant-read thermometer.
- PeppercornsA tablespoon of whole peppercorns in this volume of liquid is aggressive but defensible, since they are not eaten. Tie them in cheesecloth or a tea ball so you can pull them out, and strain the braising liquid before using any of it.
- Claret and thin brothClaret is the old English term for red Bordeaux; any dry, unoaked red will do. "Thin broth" means a light, unreduced stock — fish, veal or chicken. A pint is 2 cups of each, which should nearly cover the fish.
- Buttered paperThis is a cartouche: a round of parchment, buttered on the underside, laid directly on the fish so it holds in the vapor. Parchment works exactly as intended here.
- "Bring quickly to a boil"Bring the liquid up fast, then drop the heat immediately so the surface only shivers. A rolling boil will curdle the albumen out of the salmon in white streaks and toughen the outer half-inch.
- Don't waste the liquidThe recipe says nothing about the braising liquid once the fish is lifted out. Strain it, reduce hard, and either serve a spoonful under the fish or whisk a little into the hollandaise.
- YieldA center-cut darne of 2 lb serves three to four. Hollandaise for that quantity: 3 egg yolks and about 6 oz butter.
Darne is the standard French butchery term for a bone-in steak cut across a round fish — salmon above all — and the recipe itself glosses it as "the middle cut." The method is a braise au vin rouge: fish set on a bed of minced onion, carrot and parsley (a mirepoix in all but name), moistened with wine and stock, sealed under buttered paper. Red wine with salmon looks odd to modern eyes trained on white-wine-with-fish rules, but it was ordinary in nineteenth-century French cooking, where salmon's fat and firm flesh were treated closer to meat than to sole. Gold Medal's cook books were promotional publications issued by the Washburn-Crosby milling company.