No. 1247

Salmon Salted, a la Bedlow

Saumon Sale a la Bedlow

Soak some salt salmon for twelve hours, changing the water several times, then boil it in acidulated water adding a handful of parsley branches. Have a bechamel sauce (No. 409), and just when ready to serve incorporate into it pats of fresh butter; add some nasturtiums and garnish around with small crab croquettes (No. 879).

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For the Modern Kitchen

A short entry in Ranhofer's terse house style, written for cooks who already had béchamel and croquette mixture on hand. The hinge is the salt fish: everything depends on how thoroughly you draw the salt out before it ever meets heat.

The soak is not optionalHard-salted salmon needs the full twelve hours under cold water in the refrigerator, with three or four changes. Taste a sliver raw at the end; if it is still aggressively salty, keep soaking, because the béchamel cannot rescue it.
Salt salmon todayCommercial salt salmon is generally less heavily cured than the barrelled fish of the 1890s, and lox-style cold-smoked salmon is not a substitute. If you buy lightly salted fillet a shorter soak, perhaps four to six hours, may be enough; taste to judge.
"Boil" means poachRanhofer writes boil, but salmon holds together better just below a boil: bring the acidulated water to a bare shiver and cook 8-10 minutes per inch of thickness. A hard rolling boil shreds salmon and squeezes out the fat.
Acidulated waterAbout a tablespoon of lemon juice or white wine vinegar per quart, plus the parsley branches. The acid firms the flesh and keeps the colour clean.
Béchamel, finished with butterBechamel, finished with butter -- No. 409 is Ranhofer's flour-and-butter white sauce built on milk. Whisking in butter pats off the heat at the last moment gives gloss and body; once the butter is in, the sauce should not be simmered again or it may break.
NasturtiumsMost likely the pickled seed pods, widely used in this period as a substitute for capers, rather than the flowers. Brined capers or nasturtium (capucine) pickles are the closest thing now; a few peppery nasturtium leaves or blossoms added at the table are a reasonable modern reading.
Crab croquettesNo. 879 is a crab croquette: a thick bound mixture chilled firm, shaped small, breaded and fried. Fry them last so they reach the plate crisp, and keep them small so they read as garnish.
YieldFigure roughly 6 oz of soaked fish per person, about 1.5 lb for four, with a cup and a half of sauce and a few croquettes each. The recipe itself specifies no quantities.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this dish shows the restaurant's habit of dressing up a cheap staple. Salt salmon came out of the barrel and was everyday food along the eastern seaboard; Ranhofer soaks the salt away, cloaks it in butter-finished bechamel, and props it up with fried crab, at which point it can be sold as a course. The suffix a la Bedlow fits the kitchen's practice of naming plates for New York places and patrons, and may allude to the Bedlow name that attached to Bedloe's Island in the harbour, later Liberty Island, though no source records what Ranhofer intended. Pickled nasturtium pods, the other period marker here, were a common American kitchen-garden pickle used where a recipe wanted the bite of capers without the imported price.