Home › The Waldorf Kitchen › Boiled Salmon Trout
Boiled Salmon Trout
Clean a salmon trout, rub it well with salt, and let it remain for an hour Wash it thoroughly and wipe it dry; stuff it with fish forcemeat, tie up the head, place it on a buttered drainer in a fishkettle, pour over a strained mirepoix, and add two pints of white wine and an equal quantity of fish stock or broth. Bring the liquor to the boil, remove it to a slow fire and simmer it gently for an hour and a half. Take out the fish, drain it, remove the skin, glaze over, place it on a dish, garnish with cooked truffles and serve with mirepoix sauce in a sauceboat.
Salmon Trout, Modern Style Clean and salt a salmon trout as for plain boiling, stuff it with fish forcemeat, tie the head up carefully, place the fish on a drainer in a fish kettle, sprinkle it over with grated nutmeg, salt and pepper, put in a bunch of sweet herbs, a clove of garlic and one pound of butter, pour in one quart of champagne and set it to boil. Remove it to the side of the fire, where it will simmer gently, but constantly for two hours, basting it frequently with its own liquor. Take out the fish, remove the skin carefully, glaze the surface, place it on a dish in the oven, glaze it once more, allow it to remain for about ten minutes, then take it out, untie, put it on a servingdish, garnish with parsley or any other garnish that may be desired, and serve with the strained liquor from the fish in a sauceboat.
Two versions of the same set piece from the Waldorf's fish station, written for a kitchen with a fish kettle, a stock pot always going, and a whole sea trout to hand. The cooking times are the one thing not to copy.
- The simmering time is the hingeAn hour and a half, or two hours, will reduce any trout to cotton wool. Whole fish are poached at a bare shiver, roughly 8-10 minutes per inch of thickness at the shoulder, and pulled at 125-130F at the bone. A 4-6 lb fish is done in 30-40 minutes.
- Salmon troutUsually sea trout, the anadromous form of the brown trout, familiar in Britain and Europe; note that in American usage of this period the name was also applied to lake trout and to steelhead. A whole 4-6 lb steelhead, small farmed salmon or large rainbow trout stands in well.
- Fish kettle and drainerThe drainer is the perforated rack that lets you lift a cooked fish out intact. A deep roasting pan with a wire rack and two slings of doubled cheesecloth does the same job.
- Mirepoix, 1896 senseMirepoix, older sense -- Here mirepoix means the old braising cushion of diced carrot, onion, celery and often ham or bacon cooked down with wine, then strained over the fish, not raw diced vegetables; the recipe's own "strained mirepoix" confirms it is a liquid preparation. The recipe does not define "mirepoix sauce", but it is presumably that liquor reduced and finished.
- Fish forcemeatA pounded farce of raw white fish, egg white and cream, what a modern kitchen calls a mousseline. About 12 oz fills a 5 lb fish; stitch or truss the cavity closed or it will leak into the poaching liquor.
- Slow fire and "tie up the head""Remove to a slow fire" means the coolest part of the range: hold the liquid at 160-175F, never a rolling boil. Tying the head keeps the gill plates and jaw from splaying as the collagen loosens.
- The pound of butter and quart of champagneIn the modern-style version these are the whole cooking medium for a large fish in a narrow kettle, and the liquor becomes the sauce. Scale to your pan: half a pound of butter and a bottle of dry sparkling or still white wine is ample, and any decent brut works.
- GlazingBrushing the skinned fish with reduced fish stock or a light aspic so it shines, then setting it briefly in the oven to fix the coat; the recipe gives no temperature, only "about ten minutes" in the oven. Not sugar, and not broiling to color.
- YieldA stuffed 4-6 lb fish serves six to eight as a course. Serve warm rather than hot, with the strained liquor separately.
Oscar Tschirky came to the Waldorf as maitre d'hotel in 1893, and the cookbook published under his name in 1896 belongs to the Franco-American grand style of those years, which Escoffier would codify in his Guide Culinaire of 1903. Whole poached fish, skinned, glazed and garnished with truffles, was a standard dinner-party centerpiece of that cuisine, cooked in a court bouillon or a wine-and-mirepoix bath and presented intact. The recipe does not say what "Modern Style" is meant to signal; what distinguishes this version is that the fish is cooked in champagne and butter rather than stock. Salmon trout was a fashionable fish of the period, prized because its flesh cooks pink like salmon while the fish stays small enough to serve whole.