No. 945

Puff Paste Salmon Patties—Small

Petits Pates Feuilletes de Saumon

Prepare a fish forcemeat (No.83) with salmon meat, and a third part of pike; after being pressed through a sieve, put it in a bowl, and render it smooth, mixing in with it two or three spoonfuls of chopped up cooked truffles and a small piece of anchovy butter (No.569). With this preparation and some puff paste make about fifteen small patties the same as described in No. 934, egg the surfaces and cook them in a good oven; when done remove them from the baking sheet and serve on folded napkins.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer wrote for a professional brigade and cross-references half the book in a single paragraph; the work here is in the forcemeat, not the assembly.

The hinge: keep the forcemeat coldA fish forcemeat of this type is pounded fish bound with a panada and enriched with butter or cream, then sieved. It will break if it warms, so chill the bowl and work over ice; a broken farce weeps fat into the pastry and the patties go greasy and flat.
"A third part of pike"Pike is there for its gelatinous, binding flesh, not its flavour. Whiting, hake, cod or pollock does the same job. Weigh two parts salmon to one part white fish.
"A good oven"Ranhofer gives no temperature. For puff paste this means hot; around 425F suits, and you can drop to 375F after about ten minutes if the tops are colouring faster than the filling is setting.
DonenessSmall patties take roughly 20-25 minutes. The pastry tells you nothing reliable about the centre, so check the filling at 145F, or test that a skewer comes out hot to the wrist.
SpoonfulsThe chopped truffle is given as "two or three spoonfuls" for a batch of fifteen patties; a spoonful in this book is generally taken as a tablespoon, though Ranhofer does not define it. Fresh black truffle is a luxury few will match here; a small amount of preserved truffle, or finely chopped brown mushroom cooked dry with a little truffle oil, keeps the intent.
Anchovy butterNo. 569 is butter worked with anchovy. Mash two or three oil-packed fillets into 2 tablespoons of soft butter. It is a seasoning, not a flavour of its own; if you can taste anchovy distinctly you have used too much.
EggingWash the tops only, with beaten egg thinned by a spoonful of water, and keep it off the cut edges. Egg running down the sides glues the layers together and the paste will not rise.
Yield and serviceFifteen small patties, so a first course for six to eight. The folded napkin is standard period service and is usually explained as absorbing steam so the pastry does not soften; a warmed dish and immediate service does the same.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the book is essentially the restaurant's working repertoire set down in the French classical order, with the numbered cross-references that a kitchen brigade would already know by heart. Petits pâtés feuilletés — small patties of puff paste filled with a forcemeat — appear here among the hot side dishes, the sort of small dish served between heavier courses. The instruction to serve on a folded napkin is pure period service, and recurs throughout the book.