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Mousselines de Saumon à la
Cardinal. (Cream of Salmon in small Moulds.) Ingredients.
One pound of Salmon.
Half an ounce of Butter.
Quarter of a pint of well-reduced Béchamel.
One white of Egg.
The book gives the ingredients for the forcemeat and leaves the method to the cook's training, which was normal in professional manuals of this type. What follows is what that shorthand assumes.
- The missing methodA mousseline is raw fish pounded to a paste with the seasoning, worked with egg white, passed through a fine sieve, then chilled and let down with cream before being moulded and poached. As printed, this list omits the cream entirely, though the sub-title calls the dish a cream of salmon; the book gives no quantity, so add well-chilled double cream a little at a time, beaten in over ice, until the mixture is soft but still holds its shape.
- Imperial measuresA quarter of a pint in an imperial-measure British book is 5 fl oz, about 150 ml, not the 4 fl oz of an American cup measure. Half an ounce of butter is 15 g.
- Well-reduced BéchamelThis means a béchamel boiled down until it is thick enough to stand on a spoon and almost paste-like when cold — it is there as a binder, not a sauce. A loose béchamel will slacken the mousseline and it will not set.
- Pounding, then the food processorThe mortar work can be done in a processor, but keep everything cold: bowl, blade, fish and cream. If the mixture warms, it is liable to break and the finished mousselines will weep fat and liquid.
- The sieve is not optionalEven after processing, push the paste through a drum sieve or fine mesh. This is what separates a mousseline from a fish loaf, and it also catches pin bones and sinew.
- Moulds and cookingThe book gives no method. Modern practice for this kind of forcemeat is to butter small dariole or timbale moulds, fill and tap down to expel air, cover with buttered paper and poach in a bain-marie in a low to moderate oven until just set and firm to the touch. Overcooking is the usual failure: the surface should not puff.
- What "à la Cardinal" requiresThe name is the sauce, and the recipe as given does not include it. Cardinal is a béchamel or fish velouté finished with cream, lobster butter and a little truffle or lobster coral for colour; without it the dish is simply a salmon mousseline.
- YieldThe book gives no yield. A pound of salmon made up with cream and the béchamel will fill a good many small moulds; count on a first course for six to eight or more, depending on the size of mould used.
Mousselines belong to the professional French repertoire that dominated British hotel and country-house cooking, in books of this sort written for cooks working under a chef rather than for home kitchens; the terse ingredient list assumes the reader already knows the pounding, sieving and bain-marie routine. The suffix à la Cardinal refers to colour, obtained from lobster coral or lobster butter worked into a cream sauce, and is conventionally explained by the deep red of a cardinal's robes; the garnish name is generally traced to the classical French sauce repertoire codified in the nineteenth century and later fixed by Escoffier. Salmon was one fish given the treatment, and the small moulded form suited service à la russe, where each guest received a single neat portion rather than a share of a large cold fish.