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Sauce for Cold Salmon
Beat the yolks of two eggs well with three tablespoonfuls of cream, season with salt and a little cayenne pepper, pour it into a lined stewpan, and stir it over the fire until thickened and on the point of boiling; then move it to one side, and leave the sauce until cold; stir it occasionally. Mix with it one wineglassful of vinegar, and serve.
A cooked egg-yolk dressing, thin and sharp, meant to be spooned over cold poached salmon. The whole thing hinges on heat control: this is a custard, and it curdles at the same temperature it thickens.
- The critical momentThe recipe says to take it to the point of boiling, but a yolk-and-cream mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon well before that, around 170-175F, and the yolks scramble if pushed further. A heatproof bowl over barely simmering water gives you more margin than direct heat, and a thermometer removes the guesswork.
- Lined stewpanIn this period the phrase usually meant tin-lined copper; bare copper reacts with acid and with egg. Any nonreactive pan does the job now: stainless steel or enamelled cast iron.
- WineglassfulConventionally reckoned at about 2 fluid ounces, a quarter cup. That is a great deal of acid against two yolks and three tablespoons of cream, so add it gradually and taste; vinegar of the period was not standardised the way today's 5 percent is.
- Add the vinegar coldThe instruction to cool the sauce first is not fussiness. Acid poured into hot custard will split it. Cool it fully, stirring now and then to stop a skin forming, then whisk the vinegar in.
- Which vinegarWhite wine vinegar or cider vinegar suits salmon. Malt vinegar, common in kitchens of the period, is coarser than most cooks want here; distilled white is harsher still.
- ConsistencyThis sets much thinner than mayonnaise, closer to a pourable dressing. If it seems too loose after chilling, that is expected; it is a sauce to spoon, not to pipe.
- YieldAbout half a cup, enough for four modest servings of cold salmon. Doubling is straightforward but slows the thickening, so allow extra time over the water bath.
- KeepingAn egg sauce with no preservative beyond the vinegar. Refrigerate and use within a day or two, and do not leave it out on a buffet through a long meal.
Cold salmon, poached whole and served with a sharp sauce, was one of the fixed points of the late-Victorian and Edwardian cold table; salmon holds its shape and texture when chilled better than most fish, which made it ideal for buffets, suppers after the theatre, and the elaborate cold spreads the Waldorf-Astoria was known for under Oscar Tschirky. The sauce itself belongs to the family of cooked egg dressings — close cousins to the "boiled dressing" of American cookbooks, which is better understood as a domestic, oil-sparing form. The generous slug of vinegar reflects a period taste for pronounced acidity alongside oily fish, the same instinct that pairs salmon with cucumber in vinegar or with a green sauce built on sorrel and herbs.