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Twelve Allspice
One blade of Mace.
One teaspoonful of Anchovy Sauce.
One tablespoonful of Mushroom Ketchup.
One tablespoonful of Chili Vinegar.
Mix all these ingredients together and make them hot; put in the cold perch in flakes, and serve when thoroughly hot.
To Warm up Salmon.
Ingredients.
Two tablespoonfuls of Liquor.
One tablespoonful of Salad Oil.
One dessertspoonful of Chili Vinegar.
One dessertspoonful of Cucumber Vinegar.
One teaspoonful of minced Capers.
One teaspoonful of Anchovy Sauce.
Two "warm-up" dishes for cooked fish left from an earlier meal, built on the bottled sauces and flavoured vinegars that stocked every late-Victorian store cupboard. The whole point is gentle reheating in a highly seasoned liquid, not cooking the fish a second time.
- The hinge: never let it boilGentle heat: the sauce is heated first, then the flaked cold fish goes in and is warmed through just until "thoroughly hot", as the recipe puts it. Fish held at a hard simmer will shed moisture and turn dry.
- Allspice and maceTwelve allspice means twelve whole berries, not ground; a blade of mace is one flat sliver of the lacy covering of the nutmeg, commonly reckoned at something between a quarter and a half teaspoon ground. Both infuse the hot liquid; the recipe does not say to remove them, though they are easily picked out.
- Anchovy sauceVictorian bottled anchovy sauce was a pungent, very salty essence of anchovies, generally with vinegar and spice. Anchovy paste thinned with a little water and a few drops of vinegar gives the nearest result; a teaspoon of fish sauce also works, though it is saltier.
- Mushroom ketchupA thin, dark, salty mushroom-and-spice liquid, nothing like tomato ketchup. It is still sold by British specialists; failing that, a tablespoon of a dark mushroom or soy-based sauce with a drop of vinegar approximates it.
- Flavoured vinegarsChili vinegar and cucumber vinegar were commonly made at home by steeping the ingredient in vinegar, times varying from days to weeks by recipe. Chili vinegar is easily replaced with white wine vinegar plus a small hot chilli; cucumber vinegar is milder, so plain white wine vinegar will do.
- "Two tablespoonfuls of Liquor"In a fish chapter this normally means the cooking liquor the salmon was poached in, or its jellied juices, rather than any spirit. If none was kept, use light fish stock; the quantity is small and carries the seasoning rather than making a sauce.
- Spoon sizesA dessertspoonful is two teaspoons. Period spoon measures were not standardised and differ somewhat from the modern 15 ml tablespoon, but not enough to matter in a seasoning mixture of this kind.
- Quantity and servingNeither list states how much fish, and no serving suggestion is given; these quantities of sauce are small and would suit no more than a pound or so of cooked fish.
- Reheating cooked fish safelyUse fish that has been properly chilled since it was first cooked, and bring it right through to steaming hot rather than merely warm.
Books of this class devoted whole sub-sections to "warming up" — the reheating of yesterday's boiled salmon, turbot or perch, which in a household that poached a whole fish was a routine problem rather than an occasional one. The technique is the same each time: a strongly flavoured liquid, sharpened with vinegar and salted with anchovy, does the work that freshness no longer can, and the fish is flaked so it heats quickly. The particular flavourings here — mushroom ketchup, chili vinegar, cucumber vinegar — mark the recipe as English and pre-1900; all three were cupboard staples then, made at home or bought bottled, and all three have since been largely displaced by Worcestershire sauce and commercial tomato ketchup. Mushroom ketchup is often said to be the older survivor of the family of "catsups" that began as savoury brines rather than sweet sauces.