Home › The World's Kitchen › Salmon, Perigord
Salmon, Perigord
Place three slices fresh salmon of three-quarters of a pound each in a small sautoire with half ounce butter, one branch parsley and a gill of white wine. Set on a brisk fire and let reduce until nearly dry, then pour in one and one-half gills demi-glace and one medium slice of truffle, lightly mix, cover the salmon with a buttered paper, then set in the oven for fifteen minutes. Remove, dress the salmon on a hot dish, pour the sauce over. Arrange six heart-shaped bread croutons around fish and serve.
A short classical braise: salmon steaks cooked in wine reduction and demi-glace under a paper lid. The measures are pre-metric restaurant shorthand and the timing assumes a much heavier fish steak than most people cook now.
- GillsA gill is half a cup, so the wine is 1/2 cup and the demi-glace one and a half gills, or 3/4 cup. That is a small amount of sauce for three large steaks, meant to nap rather than pool.
- SautoireA sautoire is a straight-sided shallow pan, not a deep pot. Use a wide skillet or braiser that holds the three steaks in one layer without crowding, since the wine has to reduce quickly.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given at all. A moderate oven is the safe reading, since the quantity of sauce is small and will scorch in a hot one.
- Fifteen minutes is longThree-quarters of a pound per slice means a thick steak, upwards of an inch. Even so, fifteen minutes in a moderate oven will take most modern farmed salmon past dry. Pull it at 125-130F in the thickest part, which may be nearer eight to ten minutes.
- Buttered paperThis is a cartouche: a round of parchment cut to the pan, buttered on the underside, laid directly on the fish. It keeps the surface moist and slows evaporation of a sauce that is already reduced almost to nothing.
- Demi-glaceThe original means a real reduced brown veal stock, thick enough to coat. Commercial concentrates are far saltier; dilute them and taste before the sauce reduces further, or the finished dish will be over-seasoned.
- TruffleOne medium slice of black truffle is the point of the garnish, and most commercial truffle oil is flavoured synthetically rather than with truffle, so it is a poor substitute. If no truffle is at hand, the dish is still good but it is no longer Perigord.
- CroutonsHeart-shaped croutons are white bread cut with a cutter or knife and crisped in butter. Do them last so they stay dry against the sauce.
- YieldThree steaks of that size serve three generously, or six if each is halved across.
In the classical French repertoire a dish named for Perigord almost always signals truffles: the Dordogne region of southwest France is the historic heart of the black truffle trade, and by the late nineteenth century chefs used the place name as garnish shorthand, the way florentine meant spinach and dubarry meant cauliflower. What is unusual here is the pairing of salmon with demi-glace, a brown veal-based sauce; the nineteenth-century kitchen was far less committed than we are to the idea that fish belongs with white sauces. The recipe's clipped register, with weights in ounces per portion and sauce in gills, is the language of a professional hotel kitchen rather than a home one.