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Salmon Wiggle
3 TABLESPOONS BUTTER 3 TABLESPOONS FLOUR I CUP MILK 1/2 CUP CREAM 1/2 TEASPOON SALT I TEASPOON PAPRIKA 11/2 CUPS SALMON, IN PIECES 1/2 CUP COOKED PEAS Make cream sauce of first 6 ingredients. Cook 5 minutes, then stir in salmon and peas, heat well and serve on toast. By leaving out the peas you have plain Creamed Salmon. You can make your sauce thick or thin and vary the seasoning by using a pinch of cayenne or dashes of Tabasco in place of paprika. And all seafood is suitable, lobster,. clams, oysters, crab-anything that wiggles.
FRESH HERRINGS BAKED WITH BEER Have 6-8 herrings cleaned, beheaded, washed and drained. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and give each one the tiniest dash of ground cloves and of ground allspice. Slice a small onion thin as paper and quarter the slices. Arrange fish in a narrow baking dish, scattering the bits of onion rings between the layers of fish. Mix 3/4 cup beer with 3/4 cup vinegar, and pour over. There should be enough of this mixture to just cover fish. Cover dish and cook 2 hours in slow oven.
A chafing-dish standby that comes together in about ten minutes once the sauce is going. The only thing that can go wrong is the sauce.
- QuantitiesRead the ingredient list as 3 tablespoons butter, 3 tablespoons flour, 1 cup milk, 1/2 cup cream, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon paprika, 1 1/2 cups salmon and 1/2 cup cooked peas. Three tablespoons of flour to 1 1/2 cups of liquid is a medium-thick white sauce, making about a cup and a half of sauce before the fish goes in.
- The hingeCook the flour in the butter for a minute before the liquid goes in, and hold the finished sauce at a bare simmer for the five minutes called for. Undercooked roux is what makes creamed fish taste pasty; boiling it hard after the salmon is in will break the fish into threads.
- The salmonThis most likely means canned salmon, drained, skin and the large bones removed if you object to them (the fine ones soften and are worth keeping). Leftover poached or grilled salmon works, flaked in large pieces and folded in off the heat.
- PaprikaA full teaspoon is for colour as much as flavour, and the paprika sold in this period was generally mild. Modern sweet Hungarian or Spanish paprika is more assertive; start with half and add more. If you reach for hot paprika, treat it as the cayenne alternative the recipe mentions and use a pinch.
- PeasCooked peas means already tender. Frozen peas need only to be warmed through in the sauce, so add them with the salmon, not before.
- ToastCut the toast thick and make it dry rather than pale, or the sauce soaks it to mush before it reaches the table. Split biscuits, cornbread or boiled rice all take the sauce equally well.
- YieldServes four over toast as a light supper, or two if it is the whole meal.
- Substituting shellfishThe note that any seafood will do holds, with one caution: oysters, clams and scallops need only a minute or two in the hot sauce. Simmer them the full five minutes and they tighten and turn rubbery.