No. 1240

Salmon a la Duperre—Darne

Darne de Saumon a la Duperre

A darne means a large slice of salmon, four to six inches thick, cut from the middle of the fish; after it is scaled, put it into an earthen vessel and cover with fine salt, leaving it thus for one hour, then take it out and lay it in a fish kettle; cover with cold water and a gill of vinegar, salt, minced carrots and onions, thyme, bay leaf and a bunch of parsley; let the liquid come to a boil, then skim and remove it to the side of the range so that it quivers only for forty to sixty minutes. Drain off the darne, suppress the skin and sanguineous parts covering the flesh, and dress it on a dish; glaze it over with fish glaze (No. 399) mixed with lobster butter (No. 580); garnish around with the tender part of oysters, mushroom heads turned and channeled (No. 218) and arranged in clusters; cover with a pint of matelotte sauce (No. 498) buttered when prepared to serve with lobster butter (No. 580), and fill a sauce-boat with the same sauce; lay a row of bread croutons fried in butter around the edge of the dish.

← No. 1239 Salmon a la Daumont Salmon & Trout No. 1241 Salmon, French Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a professional larder — fish glaze, lobster butter, matelote sauce all live elsewhere in the book — but the core of the dish is a salted, court-bouillon-poached centre cut of salmon. The one thing to change is the poaching time.

The hinge: poaching timeRanhofer's darne is four to six inches thick, and at roughly 10 minutes per inch at a bare quiver (170-180F) his forty to sixty minutes is about right for a piece that size; the timing only becomes excessive if you substitute a thinner modern cut. A 2-inch steak is done in about 20 minutes, pulled at an internal 125-130F.
What a darne isA cross-section steak cut through the middle of the fish, bone in, 4 to 6 inches thick — a 3 to 5 lb piece from a whole salmon. Ask a fishmonger for a centre-cut section rather than individual steaks; most retail salmon today is sold as fillet and will not give you this shape.
A gillHalf a cup. That much vinegar in a kettle of cold water is the standard acidulated court bouillon, and it firms the flesh as much as it flavours it.
The salting hourAn hour under fine salt is a dry cure that seasons and tightens the surface. On a modern fish of this size, 30-45 minutes is plenty; rinse the salt off before the fish goes into the kettle or the finished dish will be aggressively salty once the glaze goes on.
Fish kettleA long lidded pan with a perforated rack that lets you lift the fish out whole. Without one, wrap the darne in a double layer of cheesecloth leaving long ends as handles, or use a deep roasting pan across two burners. Always start in cold liquid so the fish heats evenly.
"Suppress the skin and sanguineous parts"Peel off the skin while the fish is warm and scrape away the dark brown lateral muscle, which is oily and strong-tasting. This is cosmetic as well as culinary — the point is a clean pink surface for the glaze.
Fish glaze and lobster butterFish glaze is fish stock reduced to a syrup that sets to a jelly; a strongly reduced fumet does the same job. Lobster butter is butter pounded with cooked lobster shells and coral, then strained — the red colour is the point. Both are made ahead and both can be omitted, at the cost of the dish's whole appearance.
The oysters"The tender part" means the body with the tough frill and muscle trimmed away. Warm them in their own liquor for under a minute, off the boil; a quarter hour of simmering, as older recipes sometimes ask, turns them to rubber.
YieldA 4 lb darne with its garnish and a pint of sauce serves eight to ten as a course. Sauce the fish at the table if you want the croutons to stay crisp.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's summary of some thirty years running the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York, and it reads like what it is: French haute cuisine transplanted whole to an American dining room, complete with its cross-referencing system of stocks, butters and sauces. The dish is built on the classic method for a whole or sectioned salmon a bbouillon, then a cold-glazed or hot-sauced presentation and the name follows the nineteenth-century French habit of dedicating garnishes to public figures, though such attributions are traditional rather than documented in Ranhofer. What the recipe really records is the abundance of the period: oysters were cheap enough in New York that a single platter could carry them alongside salmon and lobster butter without comment.