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Canapes of Sardines
Bone six or eight sardines, put half of them in a mortar with the hard-boiled yolks of three eggs and pound them, mixing in by degrees sufficient butter to make a firm paste. Season the mixture with a small quantity of finely-chopped parsley, chives and tarragon, mustard, pepper and a small quantity of vinegar. Rub all the ingredients together until quite smooth. Cut slices of bread into oval-shaped pieces, and fry them in butter until well browned, but not too dark a color. When fried drain and spread over with the sardine mixture. Arrange the slices on a dish over which has been spread an ornamental dish-paper or a folded napkin. Cut a few more sardines into small fillets, lay them on the canapes with very small slices of pickled gherkins and a few shelled prawns. This is a very pretty dish and simple in construction.
A straightforward savoury from the era when canapés meant fried bread rather than crackers. The whole dish stands or falls on the paste being smooth and firm enough to hold a shape.
- QuantitiesOnly half the sardines go into the paste; the rest are reserved for the fillets on top. Three or four boned sardines and three yolks will take roughly 3-4 tablespoons of softened butter to come together as a firm paste. Add it in small additions; too much at once and the mixture slackens and weeps butter at room temperature.
- Mortar or processorA small food processor does the pounding in seconds, but pulse rather than run it, and let the butter be soft rather than melted. Overworked warm butter separates and the paste turns greasy.
- SardinesMost likely oil-packed tinned sardines, though the recipe does not say so. Drain them well and lift out the spine; the fine bones are soft enough to pound in rather than grit.
- Seasoning"mustard" may be either prepared paste or mustard powder; either works, and a teaspoon of the former or a scant half-teaspoon of the latter is about right. A scant teaspoon of wine vinegar is enough. Taste before adding salt at all, since sardines and butter often carry enough.
- Frying the croutonsCut the ovals about 2 inches long from day-old firm white bread, and fry in clarified butter or a butter and oil mix over medium heat. Whole butter alone browns and burns before the bread crisps.
- Prawns"Shelled prawns" means small cooked peeled shrimp, the cocktail size. Cold-water shrimp sold in brine work well and need only draining and patting dry.
- Assembly timingSpread and garnish no more than an hour before serving. The fried bread softens once the butter paste sits on it, so browning it properly helps.
- YieldEnough for about 16 to 20 small canapés, or four to six people as a first bite with drinks.
Oscar Tschirky's Cook Book (1896) collects the standing repertoire of the Waldorf's kitchens, and canapés like this one belong to the French service that governed American hotel dining at the end of the nineteenth century — small savouries of fried bread, offered before a meal or, in the English fashion, at the end of one. Tinned sardines were a modern convenience good in this period, shipped in quantity from Brittany and later from Maine, and their arrival in an expensive hotel kitchen says something about how quickly preserved fish moved from thrift food to garnish. The instruction to lay the finished pieces on "an ornamental dish-paper or a folded napkin" is standard hotel presentation, and the paper would also have absorbed any frying butter.