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Mayonnaise of Salmon
Cut some cold boiled salmon into small, neat pieces of a uniform size and shape; prepare a mixture of two parts salad oil and one part tarragon vinegar, season it to taste with pepper and salt, beat it up well and dip the pieces of salmon in it. Wash two or three fresh lettuces, trimming off the discolored leaves, drain the water from the remainder and cut them into fine shreds. Place the lettuces on a dish and put the pieces of salmon on top of them, arranging them in a circle, each one overlapping the other. Wash the hearts only of some young lettuces and cut them into quarters; also wash some garden cress and shake it well to free it as much as possible from water. Arrange some of the lettuce hearts and cress in alternate circles round the salmon, and put some in the center of the circle of salmon. Place right in the middle of all a large piece of beet-root, on which stand half of a hard-boiled egg, from which the yolk has been scraped out and the vacancy filled with capers. Place on each piece of salmon a small round of beet-root with a caper on it. Finally, garnish with a border of halves of hard-boiled eggs and slices of beet-root. Serve the salad with a sauce-boatful of mayonnaise sauce. Mayonnaise of Salmon with Aspic Jelly Remove the bones from two pounds of salmon cut into slices, place them in a fish-kettle, cover over with boiling fish-broth, add a small quantity of salt, then move the fish-kettle to the side of the fire and boil for ten minutes. When cooked, take out the fish and leave till cold. Turn a border of aspic jelly onto a dish and fill the center with alternate layers of mayonnaise and the slices of salmon, finishing with the mayonnaise, and serve.
Two versions of the same idea: a composed cold salad built around poached salmon, and a simpler layered version set off with aspic. Both are assembly jobs, and the assembly is most of the work.
- The hinge: dry fish, cold fishThe salmon must be thoroughly chilled and blotted dry before it goes into the oil-and-vinegar dip, or the dressing slides off and the plate weeps. Cut the pieces while the fish is cold and firm, not warm from the pot.
- Two dressings, not oneThe "mixture of two parts salad oil and one part tarragon vinegar" is a vinaigrette used to marinate the fish; the mayonnaise comes separately in a sauce boat. Do not conflate them.
- Fish-kettle and "side of the fire"A fish kettle is a long lidded pan with a lifting rack; a deep roasting pan with a folded towel underneath works. "Move to the side of the fire" means drawing the pan off the direct heat so the liquid barely trembles rather than boils; the recipe's own instruction is ten minutes, and a hard boil gives dry, albumen-streaked salmon.
- Fish-brothMost likely a court bouillon: water with wine or vinegar, onion, a bay leaf, peppercorns and parsley stalks, simmered briefly and strained; the term can equally mean a broth drawn from fish trimmings.
- Garden cressCurly garden cress (Lepidium sativum), sold now as a microgreen or sprouting seed. Watercress or young mustard greens give the same peppery bite; avoid ordinary salad leaves, which contribute nothing here.
- Beet-rootCooked, peeled beets, either boiled or roasted and cooled, cut into rounds with a small cutter. Vacuum-packed cooked beets are fine and save staining the kitchen. Cut them at the last moment or the juice bleeds into the mayonnaise.
- Aspic jellyA clarified fish or light chicken stock set with gelatin — for a border mold that will unmold cleanly, allow roughly one envelope of powdered gelatin per cup of stock.
- Raw egg in the mayonnaiseHand-made mayonnaise is uncooked yolk. Use pasteurized eggs if serving anyone elderly, pregnant or immune-compromised, and keep the finished salad refrigerated until it goes to the table — an assembled fish salad left out at room temperature for an hour or more is the real risk in this dish.
- YieldThe aspic version, from two pounds of salmon, serves six to eight as a first course. The garnished platter is scaled to whatever fish you have; count on 4-5 oz of salmon per person.
Oscar Tschirky ran the dining rooms of the Waldorf and later the Waldorf-Astoria, and his 1896 collection records the repertoire of a large American hotel kitchen working in the French manner. "Mayonnaise of" was a formal classification in that repertoire, not a loose description: a cold dish of poached fish or poultry, dressed and served with mayonnaise apart, built up on a platter with the geometric garnishes — overlapping rounds, alternating circles, a stacked centerpiece of beet and egg — that were the pride of the garde-manger department. The elaborate presentation belongs to an era of buffet service, when a cold platter sat on display and had to look composed from every angle before anyone touched it. The second, plainer method with aspic is the same dish adapted for a mold.