Salmon Mayonnaise
INGREDIENTS for mayonnaise for 8 persons.-2 lbs. of cold boiled salmon, 2 large lettuces, some small salad, a little beetroot, a very little oil and vinegar, pepper and salt, rather less than ½ pint of mayonnaise sauce. AVERAGE CosT, 4s.
Having cleansed and dried the lettuces, take the outer leaves, dipped in a little oil and vinegar, to form a foundation, and upon this lay, as other cutlets, overlapping one another, in a ring, some cut from the salmon, and well mashed with the sauce, in the centre, and round these put the salad cut up, arranging it as prettily and effectively as possible with regard to colour; then pour over the remainder of the sauce and decorate with slices of beet, eggs cut up, or any savoury garnish taste may dictate.
SEASONABLE in spring and summer.
A cold composed salad rather than a cooked dish: the work is all in the poaching beforehand and the arrangement on the plate. Everything should go together cold and be served promptly.
- Quantity of sauceThe printed figure for the mayonnaise is not a usable measure and looks like a corruption of half a pint. For 2 lb of salmon serving eight, about half a pint (roughly 1 1/4 cups) is right - enough to bind the flaked centre and still leave some to spoon over.
- "Small salad"Victorian shorthand for young seedling leaves, chiefly mustard and cress, sometimes with young radish or turnip tops. Pea shoots, cress or any fine-leaved micro salad stands in.
- BeetrootBeetroot for a salad of this kind was normally cooked, boiled whole in its skin and then peeled. Ready-cooked vacuum-packed beets work; drain vinegar-packed ones well or they will bleed into the sauce.
- Cooking the salmonPoach a tail piece or fillet at a bare shiver, 160-170F, until it just flakes, then cool it in the liquor so it stays moist. To finish with two pounds of cooked flesh, start with around 3 lb on the bone.
- "As other cutlets"The instruction is to lay neat pieces overlapping in a ring, the way cooked cutlets are dressed on a dish. Cut firm slices for the ring and reserve the ragged trimmings for the mashed centre.
- Oil and vinegar for the baseThe outer lettuce leaves are simply wiped through a spoonful of dressing so they gloss and sit flat. It is not a dressed salad; keep it to a teaspoon or two.
- Raw eggHand-made mayonnaise contains uncooked yolk. Use pasteurised egg or a commercial mayonnaise if serving anyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immune-compromised.
- ServingEight as a lunch or supper dish. Assemble no more than half an hour ahead and hold it refrigerated; the leaves collapse once the sauce sits on them.
Mayonnaise of fish belongs to the cold buffet of the late nineteenth-century English household, where a salmon poached the day before was expected to reappear dressed and garnished rather than merely sliced. The pattern here — a foundation of lettuce leaves, a ring of overlapping pieces, chopped salad and beetroot for colour, egg and sauce over — is often taken to be the standard Anglo-French service, though how consistently Beeton's editors applied it to salmon, lobster and chicken alike is not something the text will bear out. The note that it is seasonable in spring and summer reflects the wild salmon season and the cold table it was served on; the average cost of four shillings marks it as a dish for a comfortable house, since salmon was still expensive before refrigerated transport made it common.