No. 2586

Salmon, Russian Style

Saumon a la Russe

Prepare and cook the salmon the same as for Destaing (No. 2580); cover with white butter, then with mayonnaise (No. 606), into which stir as much slightly dissolved jelly (No. 103); cover it well through a funnel the same as explained for a la Avelane (No. 2579) and scatter over truffles, egg-white, lobster coral and parsley, all finely and separately chopped. Imitate the eyes and gills and garnish around with Polish eggs (No. 2512), and between each egg place large oysters, blanched, marinated and covered with a white chaudfroid (No. 596). Decorate the intersections with lettuce and water cress and serve with a sauce-boat of tartar sauce (No. 631).

← No. 2585 Salmon, a la Courbet Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2587 Salmon, Venetian Style →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is a grand-buffet showpiece rather than a weeknight dish: a whole poached salmon, masked in jellied mayonnaise and decorated. Ranhofer writes in cross-references, so the work is spread across half a dozen other numbers in The Epicurean.

The hinge: temperature of the jellied mayonnaise"slightly dissolved jelly" means aspic melted and then cooled to the point where it is syrupy but not set. Jelly that is too warm will break the mayonnaise; set jelly will not flow through the funnel. Work in small batches and keep the salmon thoroughly chilled so each coat sets on contact.
Mayonnaise colléeMayonnaise collee -- mayonnaise with aspic stirred in is what later books call mayonnaise collee. Ranhofer's "as much" is elliptical as printed, but is usually taken to mean a like quantity of jelly to mayonnaise, giving a coating firm enough to hold decoration. Two or three thin coats, chilled between each, are easier to manage than one thick one.
"White butter"Not the modern beurre blanc sauce. Ranhofer gives no number for it here, but in a cold preparation it is most likely a worked butter used as a base layer to fill hollows and give the mayonnaise something to grip. If the salmon is skinned and level, softened plain butter spread thinly should do the same job.
The funnelA cold-kitchen tool for laying the coating on in a single even sheet; Ranhofer explains its use at No. 2579, which is not reproduced here. A ladle poured steadily from one end to the other, or a piping bag with a wide plain tube, gives much the same result.
Lobster coralThe roe of a hen lobster, dark when raw and turning coral red when cooked. It is dried in a slow oven, then pounded and sieved to a fine powder used as a red decorative dust. Few substitutes give the same colour without also bringing flavour.
The oystersBlanching here means seconds in their own liquor, not cooking through — enough to firm them for handling. Understand that this leaves them essentially raw, held at buffet temperature under a chaud-froid coat, which is why the whole piece belongs on ice and should not stand out more than an hour or two. Anyone in a vulnerable group should skip the oysters entirely.
Polish eggsNo. 2512, from the same run of garnishings for cold dishes; the recipe itself is not reproduced here. Any well-made stuffed egg finished with a film of aspic will sit correctly in the border.
Yield and serviceRanhofer gives neither the size of the fish nor the number it serves; dressed this way a whole salmon is a buffet piece for a large party. It must be assembled the day it is served, kept refrigerated until the last moment, and carved from the flank with a flexible knife so the coating does not shatter.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a record of the restaurant's repertoire, and its cold-buffet chapters are among the most elaborate parts of the book. A decorated whole salmon was a familiar centrepiece of the ball supper in the last decades of the nineteenth century, by which time service a la russe — courses brought from the kitchen in sequence rather than set out at once — was general, and the cold table remained one of the places where display of this kind survived. The name a la russe here does not in itself indicate a Russian origin; the technique, the mayonnaise collee and the chopped truffle-and-coral decoration are French cold-kitchen practice. Recipes like this one presuppose a brigade with a dedicated garde-manger and cold storage, which is why almost every step is a reference to another number rather than a set of instructions.