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Halibut Salad
Chop very fine one pound of cooked halibut, season with a few drops of onion juice, two teaspoons of lemon juice, one-half teaspoon of paprika, one and one-half teaspoons of salt and a few grains of cayenne; add one-third cup of thick cream, which has been beaten until stiff, and the whites of three well-beaten eggs.
Cook in buttered timbale molds until firm.
Chill, remove from pans, arrange on salad dish, garnish with mayonnaise around and on top of fish and shrimps at the base. - Maria Willett Howard.
A molded fish mousse served cold and called a salad, in the manner of the period. The hinge is the gentle heat: these are set in a water bath, and if the oven runs hot the egg whites weep and the timbales turn spongy.
- Bake in a water bathThe original says only "cook in buttered timbale molds until firm," with no oven or temperature given. Period timbales were usually set in a pan of hot water, either in a moderate oven or on the stovetop; a moderate oven of roughly 325-350F is a reasonable modern reading. Fill the pan to halfway up the molds and check at 20 minutes; they are done when the centers barely resist a light touch, perhaps 25-35 minutes for 4 oz molds.
- Timbale moldsSmall straight-sided metal cups of roughly 1/2 cup capacity. Ramekins, custard cups or a muffin tin work; butter them generously and, if you want clean sides, line the bottoms with buttered parchment rounds.
- Onion juiceMade by grating an onion and pressing the pulp through a sieve, or squeezing a cut half against a fine grater. A few drops is genuinely a few drops. Grated onion flesh will not do the same thing here, as the texture is meant to stay smooth.
- SaltOne and a half teaspoons for a pound of fish reads high to a modern palate, especially with mayonnaise going on top. A teaspoon is closer to current taste, and the cooked halibut may already be seasoned.
- The cream and the whitesBoth are whipped and both are folded in, not stirred. Fold the cream first, then the whites in two additions, and stop while a few streaks remain; overworking collapses the lift that makes the timbale tender.
- Chopping the fish"Very fine" means a paste-like mince. A food processor does it in seconds, but pulse rather than run it, or the halibut turns gluey and the finished mold slices like rubber.
- UnmoldingChill thoroughly, several hours or overnight, before turning out. Run a thin knife around the edge and invert onto the dish; a cold mold releases far more cleanly than a warm one.
- Yield and serviceA pound of fish, plus the cream and whites, should fill roughly six to eight small molds, enough for six as a first course or four as a lunch dish. The shrimp at the base should be cooked and chilled, and the mayonnaise thick enough to hold its shape.
Molded fish and meat mixtures like this one sat at the center of turn-of-the-century American entertaining, where "salad" described anything cold and composed rather than anything leafy. Halibut suited the purpose: firm, mild, white, and landed off both New England and the Pacific Northwest, the Pacific fishery expanding once rail and ice made distribution practical, so a cook could count on a lean piece that chopped smooth and took on whatever seasoning it was given. The technique is French in origin, a fish mousseline lightened with cream and egg white and set in timbale molds, and reached American kitchens largely through cooking-school teaching. Maria Willett Howard is generally credited with Lowney's Cook Book, and the recipe shows school-trained habits plainly: precise fractional measurements, a garnish specified down to the placement of the shrimp, and a dish designed to look composed on the plate before anyone tastes it.