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Canapes, Hongroise
Cut from a stale loaf of sandwich bread six slices a half inch thick, then cut slices in two-and-a-half-inch-diameter circular pieces, lightly butter both sides, roll in grated Parmesan cheese, fry in a frying pan with tablespoon butter until a good golden colour and keep hot on a plate. Boil three peeled medium potatoes in salted water thirty minutes, thoroughly drain, then press through a potato masher into a bowl, add half pound smoked salmon, cut in very small pieces, two egg yolks, two tablespoons cream, half teaspoon salt, three saltspoons paprika and saltspoon grated nutmeg, thoroughly mix. Evenly divide the force over the six canapes. Neatly smooth top with blade of a knife to domeshaped form, lightly butter surface, sprinkle a little Parmesan cheese over, place on a tin, set in oven fifteen minutes. Remove, dress on a dish with a folded napkin and serve.
A hot canapé of Parmesan-fried bread rounds topped with a smoked salmon and potato forcemeat, baked to set. Nothing here is difficult, but the original leaves out the oven temperature and uses a few vanished measures.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. Three saltspoons of paprika is about three-quarters of a teaspoon; the nutmeg is a scant quarter teaspoon.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. The topping only needs to set and colour, so a moderately hot oven — somewhere around 400F — should suit the stated fifteen minutes. The bases are already fried and cheese-coated, so err on the cooler side.
- "The force"Force is short for forcemeat, the French farce — here simply the seasoned potato and salmon mixture. It is divided over the six rounds and shaped into domes.
- PotatoesThirty minutes of boiling is for whole medium potatoes; test with a knife rather than watching the clock. Drain them well and let the steam escape before mashing, or the forcemeat will be too loose to hold a dome. A ricer gives a better texture than a masher.
- Smoked salmonHalf a pound of cold-smoked salmon to three potatoes is a generous, well-salted ratio. Taste before adding the half teaspoon of salt — modern smoked salmon is often saltier than the recipe assumes.
- Stale breadThe bread must be dry and firm, cut a full half inch thick, or the rounds will collapse under the topping. A 2.5-inch cutter or a glass rim gives the circles; save the trimmings for crumbs.
- Frying the basesOne tablespoon of butter for six thick rounds is optimistic. Work in batches and add butter as needed, over medium heat — the cheese coating burns before the bread browns if the pan is too hot.
- Yield and serviceSix canapes. The folded napkin on the serving dish was a common convention in service of this period for fried items.
À la hongroise — in the Hungarian style — is French kitchen shorthand for paprika, and often for cream and onion alongside it; the label spread through professional cookery in the later nineteenth century as Hungarian sweet paprika became a fixture of the restaurant spice shelf. The dish itself belongs to the hot-canapé tradition of grand hotel service, where a fried bread round stood in for pastry: canapé means couch or sofa, the bread being the seat on which the garnish rests. This book, compiled by Alexander Filippini, who worked in the kitchens of Delmonico's in New York, collects that international restaurant repertoire for domestic cooks; the instructions assume a cook who already knows what a forcemeat is, and no oven temperature is given.