No. 2584

Salmon a la Seymour

Saumon a la Seymour

Have a salmon prepared and cooked the same as Destaing (No. 2580); carefully suppress the skin and the brown parts of the meat; fill the inside with butter and cover with several layers of pale pink jelly; decorate with fanciful cuts of egg-white and pistachios and garnish around with marinated lobster escalops covered with white jellied mayonnaise (No. 613), on which strew truffles, gherkins and egg-white, each of these to be chopped up separately; then mask with jelly; decorate with basket-shaped eggs (No. 2508); also have lettuce hearts cut in four and at each end place green water cress. Accompany this fish by a sauce-boat of ravigote mayonnaise sauce (No. 612).

← No. 2583 Salmon a la Regence, on Socle Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2585 Salmon, a la Courbet →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is an assembly job rather than a cooking one: Ranhofer assumes you already have a poached salmon, a pot of clear aspic and a batch of mayonnaise collée at hand, and the numbered cross-references do the rest. The points below cover what those numbers hide.

The hinge: temperature of the jellyMasking works only when the aspic is at the syrupy stage, cool enough to cling but still fluid, around 65-70F. Too warm and it runs off the fish in streaks; too cool and it sets in lumps. Chill the salmon thoroughly first and build up several thin coats, refrigerating between each.
"Suppress" the skinRanhofer's French-inflected English: suppress means remove. Peel off the skin and scrape away the darker brown lateral flesh, which is oily and strong-tasting and would show through pale jelly.
Cooking the salmon (No. 2580)The cross-reference sends you to the Destaing salmon, which is not reproduced here; a whole salmon for cold service would normally be poached in court bouillon and left to cool in its liquid. Hold the liquid well below a boil, around 160-170F; a rolling boil splits the flesh and squeezes out white albumen, which ruins the surface you are about to glaze.
Pale pink jellyA fish aspic tinted faintly rose. Cochineal or carmine was the usual colouring of the period; beet juice or a spoonful of tomato reduction gives the same blush without a strong flavour. The jelly must be crystal clear, so clarify with egg white before tinting.
White jellied mayonnaiseNo. 613 is mayonnaise collee, mayonnaise stiffened with dissolved gelatin so it sets on the lobster. Add the melted gelatin while it is warm but not hot, whisking steadily, or the mayonnaise will break.
Lobster escalopsNeat slices cut crosswise from a cooked tail, briefly marinated in oil, vinegar or lemon, salt and pepper. Drain them well before coating; residual marinade prevents the jellied mayonnaise from setting.
Truffles and gherkinsEach garnish is chopped separately so the colours stay distinct, which is the whole point of the decoration. Fresh black truffle is a luxury purchase; preserved truffle peelings, well drained, do the visual work for a fraction of the cost.
Butter in the cavityThe recipe says simply to fill the inside with butter; a seasoned compound butter is the practical reading, worked with lemon juice, salt and a little cayenne and piped in while soft.
Serving and holdingA whole dressed salmon of this kind would serve a dozen or more as part of a cold buffet, though the recipe gives no yield. Keep it refrigerated until the moment it goes to the table and do not leave it out more than two hours; aspic, mayonnaise and cooked fish are all at their least forgiving at room temperature.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this recipe belongs to its most theatrical department: the cold buffet, where a poached salmon was skinned, glazed, inlaid with cut egg white and pistachio, and set among lobster, aspic and lettuce hearts as a centrepiece meant to be looked at for some time before it was eaten. The naming follows the house convention of the period, in which cold showpieces were dedicated to patrons, singers and public figures, so "a la Seymour" may well be a compliment to a guest rather than a description of a technique, though nothing in the book confirms it; Ranhofer rarely explains his dedications. What the entry really documents is the working method of a large brigade: nothing here is cooked from scratch on the page, and the numbered references to Destaing salmon, jellied mayonnaise, basket eggs and ravigote sauce show a kitchen assembling finished components in sequence, which is how such garnished platters were produced at volume.