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Canapes of Smoked Salmon
Fry in clarified butter some fingers of bread, two and one-half inches long, one and one-half inches wide and one-fourth inch thick; when lightly browned drain them and leave them until cold. Mask the pieces of bread with anchovy butter, place some thin slices of smoked salmon on each, sprinkle over some chopped hard-boiled egg and parsley and serve.
A cold hors d'oeuvre built on fried bread rather than toast, which is the detail that makes it work. Nothing here is difficult; the timing of the components is what needs attention.
- Clarified butterButter with the milk solids and water removed, so it fries without burning or speckling the bread. Melt unsalted butter gently, skim the foam, pour off the clear fat and discard the milky sediment. Plain butter will scorch at the temperature these croutons need.
- Let the bread go fully coldThis is the hinge. Anchovy butter spread on warm croutons melts and soaks in, and the bases turn greasy and limp within minutes. Drain the fried fingers on paper and leave them a good twenty minutes before assembling.
- Anchovy butterNot a purchased product in most places now. Mash about six oil-packed anchovy fillets, or two teaspoons of anchovy paste, into 4 oz (1 stick) softened unsalted butter with a squeeze of lemon; add no salt. Chill until firm, then bring back to spreading consistency.
- "Mask"Kitchen French for coating a surface completely and evenly, not dabbing. A thin, edge-to-edge layer also seals the crouton against the moisture in the salmon.
- Bread and dimensionsThe 2 1/2 x 1 1/2 x 1/4 inch fingers are best cut from a firm white loaf, crusts off, from an unsliced loaf so you control the thickness.
- Smoked salmonCold-smoked, sliced as thin as it will go, trimmed to sit within the border of the bread rather than draping over it. Hot-smoked salmon flakes and will not lie flat.
- Hard-boiled eggChop the white and yolk together, fine but not to a paste, and pass it through a coarse sieve if you want a finer crumb. Chop the parsley separately and dry it in a towel so it scatters instead of clumping.
- Yield and timingAssemble within an hour of serving; assembled any earlier they soften. The croutons and the anchovy butter can both be made a day ahead.
Canape means "couch" or "sofa" in French, and the name is generally explained as the bread being the couch on which the garnish reclines. The anchovy butter beneath the salmon does practical work: it seasons, it glues, and it keeps some of the moisture of the fish off the bread. Oscar Tschirky, the Swiss-born maitre d'hotel who ran the Waldorf's dining rooms from 1893 and put his name to the 1896 collection, was working at a time when cold savoury tidbits in the Russian and French manner were becoming familiar in American hotel practice. Chopped egg and parsley were a common finish for cold savouries of the period.