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Halibut Salad (Flake the fish and marinate)
Flake the fish and marinate with French dressing (three tablespoonfuls of oil, one tablespoonful of lemon juice or vinegar, a dash of salt and pepper, for each pint of fish); drain, and add half as much boiled potato, cut in small cubes and dressed with French dressing. Serve on a bed of lettuce leaves. Garnish with sardine dressing.
Shredded lettuce or peas may be used in place of the potato.
A leftovers dish from the era when a poached halibut steak was a common Sunday dinner and the remains went into Monday's salad. The recipe assumes the fish is already cooked and cold.
- Start with cooked fishNothing here cooks the halibut, so it must go in already poached, steamed or baked, and cold. Measure the flakes by volume against the pint the recipe calls for rather than by weight.
- A pint of fishVolume measures for solids were normal in cookbooks of this period. A pint of loosely flaked fish is about 2 cups, or roughly 10-12 oz by weight; pack it lightly rather than pressing it down.
- The dressing ratioThree parts oil to one part acid is still the standard vinaigrette proportion, so this needs no adjustment. Use a mild olive or a neutral oil; the period's "salad oil" was often cottonseed, and a strong modern extra-virgin will bully the halibut.
- Dress the potato warmThe recipe does not specify this, but tossing the diced boiled potato with its French dressing while still warm lets it take up the acid; cool it before combining with the fish, which should be dressed and drained cold.
- Marinating timeTwenty to thirty minutes in the refrigerator is enough. The fish is already cooked, so a longer soak mostly softens and breaks up the flakes rather than improving them.
- Sardine dressingA period garnish made by mashing boneless skinless sardines to a paste and working them into mayonnaise or a French dressing until smooth. Any tinned sardine in oil works; drain it well or the garnish will slump.
- Peas, if you use themThe original means cooked green peas, cold. Frozen peas blanched a minute and chilled are closer to the intent than anything tinned.
- YieldFish, potato and garnish together serve about four as a first course or three as a lunch main. The recipe specifies only 'a bed of lettuce leaves' and does not say whether to plate individually.
Halibut was one of the great American food fishes of the late nineteenth century, landed in quantity out of Gloucester and Boston and shipped inland on ice, which is part of why it turns up so often in cookbooks of this period in cold dishes. Its firm, large flakes hold their shape in a dressing where a softer fish would collapse, and the pairing with cold dressed potato echoes the fish-and-potato salads of northern Europe. Sardine paste worked into a dressing is a characteristic savoury touch of the era, used to add depth where the main ingredient was deliberately bland.