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Brook-Trout Salad
DRESS the trout without removing the heads; boil as previously indicated. Remove the backbone without destroying the shape of the fish. Serve, thoroughly chilled, on crisp lettuce leaves dressed with claret or French dressing. Prepare the latter with tarragon vinegar.
A cold poached-fish salad from the era when a whole trout arrived at table head and tail intact. The technique is straightforward; the only real risks are overcooking and losing the shape of the fish when you bone it.
- "Boil" means poachNever let the water move at more than a lazy shiver, around 170F. A true boil splits the skin, curls the fish and pushes the flesh apart. Slide the trout into salted water acidulated with a little lemon or vinegar, or a proper court bouillon, and hold it there off the boil.
- TimingA 10-12 oz brook trout needs roughly 8-10 minutes at that temperature; the flesh should read 145F at the thickest part behind the head and separate cleanly from the bone. The original gives no times of its own, referring back with 'boil as previously indicated' to instructions given earlier in the book.
- Cool it in the liquidLet the trout come down to room temperature in its poaching liquid, then chill covered for several hours. This keeps the flesh moist and firms it enough to handle without breaking.
- Boning without wrecking the fishChill first, then run a thin knife along the back, lift the top fillet, and pull the backbone out from the head end with the rib bones attached. Replace the top fillet and the fish looks whole. Check for pin bones along the belly line.
- Brook trout todaySalvelinus fontinalis is a char, and wild fish are not sold commercially in most places. Farmed brook trout or rainbow trout of the same size behaves identically here.
- French dressing, 1900 versionAt this date that means simply oil and vinegar with salt and pepper, commonly around three parts oil to one of vinegar though the proportion varied, whisked to a temporary emulsion. Use tarragon vinegar as directed; the recipe specifies it.
- Claret dressingPresumably the same dressing with claret standing in for some or all of the vinegar; the recipe gives no proportions. It is thin and stains the lettuce, so dress the leaves at the last moment.
- Yield and serviceOne pan-size trout per person suits the dish, laid on the dressed leaves rather than flaked into them. The recipe specifically calls for the heads to be left on; remove them if it will not suit the table.
This comes from Janet McKenzie Hill's Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing Dish Dainties (1900), written when cold poached fish in aspic or on lettuce was a fixture of the American luncheon table and salads were still, in large part, an exercise in arrangement. Brook trout carried particular prestige: an eastern North American char rather than a true trout, it was the sport fish of the Adirondacks and the Maine woods, and it was served whole, with the head intact. The claret dressing belongs to the same moment -- French dressings flavoured with red wine, tarragon vinegar or shallot were the fashionable alternative to the heavier boiled and mayonnaise dressings.