Fish Loaf
1 pound canned salmon or tuna fish or 2½ pounds flaked, boiled fish, any kind, or 1½ pounds any raw, white fleshed fish, chopped fine 3/4 cup soft bread crumbs 1 tablespoon Argo or Kingsford's Cornstarch 2 tablespoons Mazola 2/3 cup milk 1 egg 1 tablespoon onion, minced 3/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon paprika 1 teaspoon minced parsley (optional) Combine the ingredients in the order given and set aside for twenty minutes. Rub a medium-sized baking pan with Mazola, dust with fine dry crumbs, pack in the fish mixture and bake until firm-about thirty-five minutes in a moderate oven, 350 degrees F. Unmould and serve with White or Chopped Egg Sauce, Fried Tomatoes, Spanish Sauce or any creamed vegetable.
A straightforward binder-and-bake loaf, and unusually forgiving because the original gives three different fish options at three different weights. The proportions are already scaled so that each yields the same amount of loaf.
- The brand namesArgo and Kingsford's are cornstarch, interchangeable with any plain cornstarch. Mazola is corn oil; any neutral oil works, as does melted butter.
- Why three weights of fishCanned salmon or tuna comes in at 1 lb, cooked flaked fish at 2 1/2 lb, raw white fish at 1 1/2 lb. The recipe does not explain the difference. Drain canned fish well or the loaf will be wet.
- The twenty-minute rest mattersThe twenty-minute rest -- the recipe directs it, and the likely purpose is to let the crumbs and cornstarch take up the milk before baking.
- Pan sizeThe recipe says only 'a medium-sized baking pan'. Since the loaf is unmoulded and sliced, a small loaf pan is a reasonable reading.
- Oven and doneness350F is stated in the recipe, so no translation is needed. Thirty-five minutes is the time given; a loaf built from already-cooked or canned fish is only being set, so check earlier. It is done when firm and pulling slightly from the sides; 145F at the centre is the modern guide for fish.
- UnmouldingLet it stand five to ten minutes before turning out. Straight from the oven the egg-and-starch bind is still soft and the loaf will split along its length.
- YieldThe recipe gives none; perhaps four to six luncheon servings.
This comes from a promotional cookbook issued by the makers of Argo and Kingsford's cornstarch and Mazola oil, which is why both appear by name in a list of only ten ingredients. Corn-products companies published such booklets in large numbers in the first decades of the twentieth century, and the recipes tend to share a house style: reliable, thrifty, built around a small can or bottle of the sponsor's product. The fish loaf itself belongs to the era's fondness for moulded luncheon dishes, which stretched a pound of canned fish into a company meal and could be sliced neatly at the table. Canned salmon was cheap and ubiquitous in American kitchens by then, and the long list of suggested sauces, white, chopped egg, Spanish, or any creamed vegetable, reflects a period assumption that a plain baked loaf was a foundation rather than a finished dish.