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Cold Salmon, Alaska
Place three slices salmon of three-quarters of a pound each in a sauteuse with a half gill white wine, a pint water, two tablespoons vinegar, one sliced onion, two branches parsley, one bay leaf, one clove and a heavy teaspoon salt; let slowly come to boil, then place pan in a cold place and let thoroughly cool off.
Prepare a Hollandaise sauce, add to it half teaspoon anchovy essence, beat with a whisk until thoroughly cold. Whisk a half gill thick cream to a stiff froth and add to sauce, gently mix with spoon, then place it in a sauce bowl. Dress salmon on a cold dish with a folded napkin, decorate with a little parsley greens and send to table with the sauce separately.
A cold poached salmon with a chilled mousseline sauce — straightforward once the period terms and the loose court bouillon are pinned down.
- The hinge: never let it truly boilThe hinge is the cooling, not the cooking -- the recipe says "let slowly come to boil," and then the pan is set aside to cool with the fish still in it, so much of the cooking happens as the liquid cools. Modern practice would keep the bath at a bare tremble rather than a rolling boil: hard-boiled salmon in this thin liquid squeezes out white albumin and goes dry and chalky.
- Gills and other measuresA gill is half a cup, so a half gill of white wine is 1/4 cup and a half gill of cream is likewise 1/4 cup. A "heavy teaspoon" of salt means a generous, rounded one.
- SauteuseA shallow, straight- or sloping-sided pan wide enough to hold the slices in one layer without crowding. A 10- or 12-inch sauté pan or a deep skillet does the job; the fish should be barely covered by the liquid.
- Slices of three-quarters of a poundThese are cross-cut steaks (darnes) cut through the bone; how thick a 12 oz steak comes out depends on the size of the salmon. Three of them is about 2 1/4 lb of fish, which serves three generously or six as part of a cold table.
- Anchovy essenceA thin bottled anchovy extract once standard in British and Anglo-American pantries. Anchovy paste from a tube is the nearest survivor; use about a quarter teaspoon and taste, since the paste is far more concentrated and saltier than the old essence.
- The sauce is a cold mousselineHollandaise whisked until cold and lightened with whipped cream is what later kitchens call sauce mousseline or chantilly. Whisk the finished hollandaise over a bowl of ice so it cools quickly and evenly; a slowly cooling hollandaise sitting warm on the counter will separate and is also the point at which egg-borne bacteria are happiest.
- "A cold place"A larder or cellar in 1906. Refrigerate instead, and get the pan into the cold within a couple of hours rather than letting it stand out all afternoon. Leave the salmon in its liquid until cold, then lift it out and drain before dressing.
- ServingThe folded napkin on the platter is period presentation, usually explained as absorbing moisture from the fish. Skin and remove the centre bone before plating if you want it easier to eat, and sauce only at the table so the mousseline stays distinct.
Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's kitchens, filled The International Cook Book (1906) with dishes labelled by place, though such names are often decorative rather than descriptive, and what "Alaska" is meant to signal here is not stated. Commercial salmon canning on the Pacific coast, including Alaska, expanded rapidly from the late 1870s onward and put Pacific salmon within reach of eastern tables. The treatment is otherwise entirely French: a short vinegar-sharpened court bouillon, the fish cooled in its own liquor to keep it moist, and a rich cold sauce served apart -- the standard grammar of the cold table, where everything is prepared ahead and needs to hold for hours without collapsing. The whipped cream folded into hollandaise is the same trick used to make a warm sauce behave on a cold plate.