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Salmon Cutlet in Papers
Cut a slice about one inch thick from the middle of a salmon, wrap it round in oiled paper and fry it in boiling fat. When done take it out, drain, and serve with the paper still on.
Three lines of instruction that assume a professional range and a cook who already knows what salmon looks like when it is done. The paper is the whole point: it is a barrier, not a garnish.
- Use parchment, nothing elseThe "oiled paper" of the period was plain kitchen paper brushed with oil. Use unbleached parchment, cut generously and folded so no seam opens in the fat. Waxed paper melts, foil will not seal the same way, and paper bags or newsprint have no place in hot fat.
- "Boiling fat" is 350-360F"Boiling fat" is not a temperature -- Fat does not boil; the phrase means fat hot enough to work briskly, and the book gives no figure. In modern terms something in the region of 350F answers: much below that and the parcel soaks and greys, much above 375F and the paper scorches before the fish is through.
- A middle cutA slice from the middle of the fish means a full cross-section steak, bone in, an inch thick. Depending on the size of the salmon that is anything from a generous single portion upwards. Tail-end slices are thinner and will overcook in the same parcel.
- Timing the fishAn inch-thick steak in a sealed parcel will want roughly 6-8 minutes, though the recipe gives no time and says only "when done". Nineteenth-century instructions generally aimed at fish cooked through to flaking; current practice pulls it at 125-130F in the centre, still deep pink at the bone. Judge by feel through the paper, since you cannot see it.
- Drain properlySet the parcel on a rack rather than paper towel, or the underside steams and the wrapper softens. The paper should reach the table dry enough to cut open cleanly.
- Season inside the wrapperNothing gets in once the parcel is sealed. Salt the steak, and add a slice of butter, a strip of lemon peel or a little chopped shallot before folding.
- ServingThe diner opens the paper at the table for the burst of steam. The recipe names no sauce; a green sauce, a hollandaise or plain melted butter with lemon would all suit, and the fish itself carries no sauce inside.
Cooking in paper is an old French technique, en papillote, generally associated with protecting delicate flesh from direct heat while trapping its own steam. This is the fried rather than the baked form, which a hotel kitchen with deep fat always at the ready could turn out readily. Salmon appears repeatedly in the Waldorf's repertoire, in steaks, cutlets and cold moulded preparations. The instruction to "serve with the paper still on" reads as much as theatre as technique, and the brevity of the recipe suggests a reader who already knows the work.