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Baked Salmon with Colbert Sauce
1 slice salmon, 1 1/2 lbs. in weight 4 tablespoonfuls melted Crisco 1 tablespoonful chopped parsley 1 tablespoonful tarragon vinegar 1 chopped shallot, gherkin and anchovy Salt, pepper, and red pepper to taste
This entry from The Story of Crisco gives quantities only; the method has to be reconstructed from the ingredients, which are those of a cold compound-butter sauce spread over a baked salmon steak. A few notes before starting.
- The weight of the fishThe printed page reads 1 1/2 lbs., as our text now gives. That is the weight of a single thick cross-cut salmon steak, enough for four servings.
- Crisco stands in for butterCrisco was new when this book was printed in 1913, and the book is a promotional volume whose recipes use the shortening throughout. In a Colbert-style sauce the fat carries the flavour, so butter gives a better result; use 4 tablespoons of it, softened rather than melted, if you are not committed to the demonstration.
- Oven temperatureThe entry gives no method or oven heat; as a modern reconstruction, a salmon steak of this thickness bakes well at 375F, covered, for roughly 20 to 25 minutes.
- Cook the fish to temperature, not to the clockMany modern cooks pull salmon at 125 to 130F at the centre and find it dry by 145F, though 145F is the temperature food-safety guidance specifies for fish. The sauce cannot rescue overcooked salmon.
- Chop the garnish fineShallot, gherkin, anchovy and parsley all go in raw and uncooked, so they should be minced to near-paste. One anchovy fillet, not a whole tinned fish, and one small cornichon.
- Tarragon vinegarStill sold, and worth seeking out; it is the defining note of a Colbert sauce. White wine vinegar steeped for a few days with a bruised tarragon sprig substitutes acceptably.
- "Red pepper"In American cookbooks of this era red pepper means cayenne, not paprika and not a sweet pepper. A pinch is enough.
- Assembly and yieldThe recipe calls for melted Crisco; if you use butter instead, beat the seasonings into it softened, spoon it over the hot fish and let it melt into the flakes at the table. On the 1 1/2 lb reading the steak would serve three to four; the half-pound slice as printed serves one.
The Story of Crisco was published by Procter & Gamble in 1913, two years after Crisco itself reached the market, with recipes credited to Marion Harris Neil, then cookery editor of Ladies' Home Journal. Its job was to persuade cooks that a hydrogenated vegetable shortening could do everything butter and lard did, which is why butter has been quietly written out of a French sauce here. The sauce is named for Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's finance minister, an attribution that is traditional rather than documented; in classical French usage sauce Colbert is a maitre d'hotel butter enriched with meat glaze and tarragon, served on grilled fish. The version in this book has drifted some way from that, with gherkin, shallot and anchovy added, and reflects the Anglo-American habit of treating any well-seasoned savoury butter as a "sauce" for baked fish.