Baked Salmon
When washed and dried, sprinkle over pepper and salt. Have ready in a baking-pan a small grating; lay the fish on this, with bits of butter over it; set in a hot oven, basting often and freely with butter. When nicely browned, butter a sheet of white paper and lay over it, to prevent its getting too dry; when done and tender, place on a hot dish. Add to the gravy one teacupful milk, one tablespoonful pepper vinegar, pepper, salt, and a mashed Irish potato smoothly mixed in; boil, and pour over the fish. Sift over all browned cracker. Garnish with bleached tops of celery and curled parsley alternately.--Mrs. T.
A whole baked salmon finished with a milk gravy thickened with potato rather than flour. The one thing to change is the doneness: cook to temperature, not to "done and tender."
- Internal temperatureSalmon is at its best pulled at 125-130F at the thickest part, when the flesh just flakes and is still translucent at the center. Cooked until it is uniformly "tender" throughout, as the wording invites, it will be dry and chalky no matter how much butter went over it.
- A hot ovenRead this as somewhere around 425F; a period "hot oven" is generally reckoned in the 400-450F range. A whole fish of 4-5 lb will take roughly 30-45 minutes at that heat; a thick center-cut piece of 3 lb, closer to 25 minutes.
- The gratingA small wire rack set in the pan, so the fish sits above its own drippings and browns rather than steams. Any small cooling rack or a folded bed of foil strips does the same job.
- Buttered paperButtered parchment laid loosely over the fish once it has colored. This is a shield, not a seal — do not crimp it down or the skin softens.
- TeacupfulA nineteenth-century teacup is smaller than a modern measuring cup; reckon it at roughly 4 to 6 fl oz rather than a full 8.
- Pepper vinegarHomemade hot-pepper vinegar, a standing Virginia condiment: small hot peppers steeped in cider vinegar. A bottled pepper sauce plus a splash of cider vinegar is the nearest substitute; a full tablespoon is assertive in a cup of milk gravy, so add half and taste.
- Irish potatoAn ordinary white potato, so named to distinguish it from the sweet potato. It is the thickener here — boil and mash it perfectly smooth, or press it through a sieve, before whisking into the pan liquid, and do not overwork the sauce once it boils or it turns gluey.
- Browned crackerDry cracker crumbs toasted in a pan or the oven until tan, sifted over as a finishing texture. Unsalted soda crackers or water biscuits are closest.
- YieldA 4-5 lb dressed salmon serves six to eight, with about a cup and a half of sauce.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1878), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by Virginia housekeepers, prints recipes signed with initials — "Mrs. T." here — so the book reads as a neighborhood's collective practice rather than one author's. Salmon was not a Chesapeake fish; shad, rockfish and sheepshead were the local bakes, so a whole baked salmon sits a little oddly in this collection. The finishing sauce is characteristic of the period and the region: milk rather than stock, thickened with mashed potato instead of a roux, and sharpened with pepper vinegar, the pepper-steeped vinegar bottle that sat on Virginia tables for greens and fish alike. The garnish of blanched celery tops and curled parsley belongs to the same era's taste for a composed platter, when a fish was expected to arrive whole and dressed.]