No. 1242

Salmon a la Moderne

Saumon a la Moderne

Prepare a garnishing composed of blackfish fillets a la orly (No. 1114), small onions, milts, and mushrooms, also a champagne sauce (No. 445). Cut from a medium sized salmon, two inch thick slices, macerate them for one hour in fine salt, drain, and range them on the grate of a small fish kettle to plunge them into a boiling plain court bouillon (No. 38). Let it boil once more, and keep it at the same degree of heat but without boiling for twenty-five to thirty minutes; when done drain the slices on a cloth to wipe off all the moisture; suppress the skin, then dress them one overlapping the other on a long dish; around the fish range the small onions, mushrooms, and milts; pour some of the sauce over, and garnish both ends with the fillets. Send the champagne sauce to the table in a sauce-boat.

← No. 1241 Salmon, French Style Salmon & Trout No. 1243 Salmon a la Victoria →

For the Modern Kitchen

A composed platter from Ranhofer's The Epicurean, built out of four cross-referenced preparations. Strip away the numbers and it is poached salmon steaks with a butter-mounted wine sauce and three garnishes; the only part that needs rethinking is the poaching time.

The hinge: poaching timeTwo-inch salmon steaks held near the boil for 25-30 minutes will be dry and chalky throughout. Ranhofer's kitchen wanted fish fully set and firm enough to overlap on a platter; modern practice pulls salmon at 120-125F at the centre, which for steaks that thick means roughly 10-12 minutes in liquid held at 160-170F.
Court bouillonHis "plain" court bouillon (No. 38) is not reproduced here; a court bouillon of this type is generally water with wine or vinegar, aromatic vegetables and herbs, and salt, simmered before the fish goes in. Bring it to a boil, lower the fish in on the rack, then drop the heat immediately — "boil once more, and keep it at the same degree of heat but without boiling" is a clear instruction to hold it below a simmer.
Fish kettle and grateA fish kettle is a long lidded pan with a perforated tray that lifts the fish out unbroken. A deep roasting pan with a cake rack, or a wide sauté pan with steaks laid on a folded cloth, does the same job.
Macerating in fine saltOne hour in dry salt is a light cure: it firms the flesh, seasons it and draws surface moisture so the slices hold their shape. Rinse and pat dry before poaching or the seasoning will be aggressive.
MiltsMilt is soft roe — the sperm sacs of male fish, usually herring, carp or shad in this period. It is sold in some fishmongers and Asian and Eastern European markets, poached gently and served whole. It has no everyday substitute; omitting it costs the dish nothing structurally.
Blackfish fillets a la OrlyBlackfish is tautog, an Atlantic wrasse Ranhofer used constantly. Any firm white fish works. À la Orly means strips marinated in lemon and parsley, dipped in frying batter and deep-fried, then arranged as a crisp contrast at the ends of the platter — fry them last, immediately before serving.
Champagne sauceRanhofer's No. 445 is not given here; a champagne sauce of this type reduces the wine with a fish velouté or fumet and is finished with butter. Any dry sparkling wine behaves the same; the sauce is mounted off the heat and must not boil once the butter is in.
YieldTwo-inch steaks from a medium salmon run roughly 12-14 oz apiece. The recipe does not say how many slices to cut; count on one slice per person and scale the garnishes to match.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working system set down in print — nearly 3,500 numbered entries, each assembled from others by cross-reference, in the manner Escoffier would formalise a decade later. "À la moderne" was a loose nineteenth-century menu term for a dish dressed in the current style rather than a fixed formula, and here it signals the composed garnish: a plain poached fish surrounded by three separate preparations and sauced with wine. Salmon in this period came largely from the Atlantic and the Pacific Northwest, and the whole side or thick cross-cut steak was a banquet centrepiece rather than a weeknight portion. The presence of milts among the garnishes is a good marker of the era's kitchen economy — soft roe, cockscombs, sweetbreads and similar odds were standard restaurant garnish material, and have largely dropped out of American cooking since.