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Salmon Loaf-Finnish Sauce
8 medium potatoes 1 can salmon 1/4 teaspoon onion 4 slices bacon 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon pepper 3/4 cup milk 1 egg 1/4 cup bread crumbs Peel and slice potatoes. Put layer potatoes in greased pan, then layer of salmon, adding onion, sliced bacon, salt and pepper. Continue layers until pan is full. Mix egg and milk. Pour over the mixture. Sprinkle bread crumbs on top and bake in moderate oven until potatoes are done. Serves 6.
A layered potato-and-salmon bake of the sort that filled weekday menus in the 1930s, using canned fish and a plain egg-and-milk custard rather than a sauce.
- Oven temperatureA moderate oven is usually taken as about 350F. The recipe gives no time; bake until a knife slides through the centre potatoes with no resistance and the crumbs have browned.
- The hinge: slice the potatoes thinEverything else in the pan cooks faster than raw potato. Cut the slices no thicker than an eighth of an inch, or the custard sets and the crumbs brown long before the middle layers are tender.
- The onion measureA quarter teaspoon of onion is an odd quantity for a six-serving dish and reads as if it were meant for a dried or powdered form. One small onion, finely chopped and spread across the layers, matches the intent.
- Canned salmonA can then meant roughly a pound; today's standard tin is 14.75 oz, and smaller 6 oz tins are more common. Use 14 to 16 oz total. Drain it, and either mash the soft vertebrae into the fish or discard them along with the skin.
- BaconModern sliced bacon laid raw between layers will render but stay flabby; cutting it into short pieces and scattering it gives better distribution and lets the fat baste the potatoes.
- SaltHalf a teaspoon of pepper is a lot and a teaspoon of salt may be too much once the bacon and the canned salmon are counted. Season the potato layers lightly and taste-check by seasoning the milk instead.
- Liquid levelThree-quarters of a cup of milk with one egg is scant for eight potatoes' worth of slices. Use a dish the layers just fill, and add milk until it is visible between the slices when you press down.
- CrumbsDry crumbs on top will scorch before the potatoes cook. Toss them with a little melted butter or bacon fat and add them partway through the bake.