Salmon, Pickled
INGREDIENTS. -Salmon, oz. of whole pepper, oz. of whole allspice, 1 teaspoonful of salt, 2 bayleaves, equal quantities of vinegar and the liquor in which the fish was boiled. AVERAGE COST, in full season, 1s. 4d. per lb.
After the fish comes from table, lay it in a nice dish with a cover to it, as it should be excluded from the air, and take away the bone; boil the liquor and vinegar with the other ingredients for 10 minutes, and let it stand to get cold; pour it over the salmon, and in 12 hours this will be fit for the table.
TIME.-10 minutes.
A leftovers dish: cold boiled salmon given a short vinegar cure. The instructions are sound, but the printed quantities have lost their fractions and the storage advice belongs to a world of cold larders.
- The missing fractionsThe ingredient line reads "oz. of whole pepper, oz. of whole allspice" — the fraction has dropped out of the type, as it has in many reprints of Beeton. Fuller settings of the recipe supply a fraction of an ounce of each; since the surviving text does not say which, treat any quantity as a guide rather than a fixed figure.
- The liquor"The liquor in which the fish was boiled" means the water the salmon was poached in; Beeton's own boiled salmon is done in salted water. If you have poached the fish plainly in salted water, that water will do; strain it before using.
- Vinegar strengthNineteenth-century household vinegar was broadly comparable in strength to plain malt or cider vinegar today, though it varied. Equal parts vinegar and fish liquor gives a mild pickle, not a preserving brine, which is why the dish keeps only briefly.
- Boil, then cool completelyThe hinge of the recipe: the spiced liquor must be cold before it goes over the fish. Hot liquid poured on cooked salmon will finish cooking the flakes and turn them dry and cottony.
- Bone and skinBeeton says to take away the bone. Also lift off the skin and the dark brown line of fat along the lateral seam, both of which turn strong-tasting under vinegar.
- Storage, not preservation"Excluded from the air" meant a covered dish in a cold larder. Refrigerate throughout the twelve hours of steeping and eat within two or three days; this is a fresh pickle, and the acid level is nowhere near enough to make the fish shelf-stable.
- Yield and servingThe recipe fixes no weight of fish or volume of liquor, so quantities are a matter of judgement: make enough spiced liquor to cover whatever cold salmon you have. Serve it drained, with brown bread and butter, cucumber or a green salad.
- The cost note1s. 4d. per lb is Beeton's average in-season price for salmon — a reminder that the recipe assumes a household with fish left over from an earlier meal, not one buying salmon expressly to pickle.
Pickled salmon is older than Beeton by centuries: soused or pickled fish, kept under spiced vinegar, was a standard way of dealing with a glut, and recipes of this kind appear in English cookery books from the seventeenth century onward. The version here belongs to the frugal end of Beeton's book — one of the entries that begins "after the fish comes from table," turning yesterday's dinner into today's cold course rather than starting from raw fish. Whole pepper, allspice and bay is the standard souse of the period, and the same combination shows up in pickled mackerel, herring and eels. The dish has largely disappeared from British tables, though its close relatives survive in Scandinavian and Jewish cooking.