No. 2580

Salmon a la Destaing

Saumon a la Destaing

Have a very fresh twelve to sixteen-pound salmon; dress, that is, scrape off the scales, suppress the gills, and empty it by making an incision in the belly; wash it very clean, pare off the fins, and lay the salmon on a fish-kettle grate, on its side, the head resting toward the left; cover with cold white wine court-bouillon (No. 39) and stand the kettle on a hot fire; remove it at the first boil, and keep the liquid at boiling heat, without allowing it to boil up, for one hour for a twelve-pound salmon, and one hour and a half for a sixteen-pound one. Let it cool off in its own stock, then drain well for two hours. Remove the skin and sanguineous parts in the center so that the meat itself is entirely exposed, then slide it on a board of its own dimensions. Place a small bread crouton, shaped like the tail (a slightly lengthened triangle), at the extreme end of the tail, it being shaved down to almost nothing; fill the empty part of the fish with butter. Work some butter in a bowl and when very white, smooth and frothy, use it to cover the entire fish; have a strong straight band of paper, one inch in width, pass it over the butter several times until smooth, following the outlines of the salmon, and let get thoroughly cold; now cover it with a sufficiently thick and smooth layer of half-set red jelly, decorate this with truffles, pistachios, hard egg-white, and the red part of lobster meat; imitate the eye, mouth and gills, covering it over with more jelly. Dress it either on a socle or large dish, and surround with small shrimp aspics molded in timbale molds (No. 2. Fig. 137), decorated with eggs and truffles, filling them with a salpicon of shrimp mingled with jellied mayonnaise (No. 613), and fillets of sole, pared round. Cover with jellied mayonnaise, to which add chopped tarragon and chervil, then mask this over with jelly. Serve some mayonnaise sauce (No. 606) separately.

← No. 2579 Salmon a la Avelane Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2581 Salmon a la Farragut →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a cold buffet centerpiece from the Delmonico's repertoire, not a dinner dish: a whole poached salmon masked in butter, glazed with aspic, and painted with truffle and lobster. Almost all the work happens after the fish is cold.

The hinge: poach below a simmerRanhofer is explicit that the kettle comes off the fire at the first boil and the liquid is held at boiling heat without allowing it to boil up. Agitation splits the flakes and clouds the court-bouillon, and a broken fish cannot be masked smoothly.
The hour is far too longThe hour is longer than modern practice — modern practice takes salmon to about 125-130F at the thickest part, which a fish held just under the boil will reach well before Ranhofer's hour is up, so check it early. Cooling in the stock adds carryover heat. The longer cooking does give a firmer fish, which is easier to skin and handle for display.
Court-bouillonNo. 39 is Ranhofer's white wine court-bouillon, a wine-and-water bouillon with aromatics; see No. 39 for its exact composition. The recipe specifies it must be cold when the salmon is submerged, so the fish heats evenly.
Fish-kettle grateThe perforated rack inside a long poaching kettle, with handles at each end, so the cooked fish can be lifted out whole. Without one, a doubled sheet of cheesecloth under the fish with the ends left long serves the same purpose.
"Sanguineous parts"The dark brown lateral muscle along the fish's midline, strongly flavored and unattractive under a white butter coat. Scrape it away with the skin once the salmon is cold and firm.
The butter maskBeurre monté is not what is wanted here; the butter is creamed cold until pale and aerated, then spread. It must stay cold to hold the tooling done with the paper band, and the whole fish goes back to the refrigerator before the aspic goes on.
Half-set jellyAspic at the point where it coats a spoon but has not gelled, a little above its setting point. Poured warmer it melts the butter beneath; poured cooler it goes on in lumps. Expect to apply several thin coats rather than one.
Socle and timbale moldsA socle is a decorative pedestal, in Ranhofer's kitchen carved from materials such as rice paste, wax or tallow, purely structural and not eaten. The timbale molds here are the small molds illustrated at No. 2, Fig. 137; any small 3-4 oz metal mold will line and turn out aspic the same way.
Holding the finished pieceButter and mayonnaise-based garnishes on cooked fish are a food-safety limit, not a period one. Keep the assembled piece refrigerated and do not leave it standing on a buffet more than about two hours.
YieldA twelve-pound dressed salmon gives roughly 25-35 buffet portions once the shrimp aspics and sole fillets are counted in.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's summary of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry belongs to the section of cold display work that a nineteenth-century grand kitchen was judged on: the salmon is cooked, skinned, rebuilt, and then repainted in edible materials until it looks more like a fish than a fish does. The name is sometimes linked to the d'Estaing family, and in particular to Charles Hector, comte d'Estaing, the French admiral who commanded the fleet sent to aid the American cause in 1778, but the connection is traditional rather than documented, and Ranhofer records the name without explaining it. Dishes of this kind were not primarily eaten. They were carried in, set on a socle at the center of a long buffet for guests to admire, and only then broken down and served, which is why so much of the instruction here concerns smoothness, outline, and the imitation of an eye and gills.