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French Fish Salad
Choose for this any firm fleshed white fish, such as halibut or cod. Have it cut into half inch slices, two by four inches wide; arrange in a deep frying pan, cover with boiling water, add one-half of a teaspoonful of salt, one small slice of onion, a teaspoonful of vinegar and a stalk of celery, and simmer until firm, from six to ten minutes. Drain and set aside until cold. Line a low salad dish with lettuce leaves, and on this lay the fish. Spread a little anchovy paste on each slice, and on this a well-drained sardine. Garnish with mayonnaise, and serve with it extra dressing to each half pint of which has been added three sardines rubbed very smooth.
A poached-fish salad that depends entirely on the fish being cooked gently and cooled fully before it is dressed. Nothing here is difficult; the failure points are overcooking and assembling while warm.
- The hinge: poach, do not boilThe hinge: keep it gentle -- the recipe says simmer, but for half-inch slices a bare shiver rather than a rolling boil gives better results. Six to ten minutes is as written; the fish is done when it is just opaque and the flakes separate under light pressure.
- "Deep frying pan"In a book of this period this means a deep skillet or saute pan, not a fryer. Any wide pan that holds the slices in a single layer with an inch of liquid over them works.
- Cut and quantityHalf-inch slices two by four inches means roughly one portion per slice; each slice runs about 2 to 3 oz. The recipe states no yield, so buy according to the number of slices you want.
- Cool it properlyDrain the fish and chill it in the refrigerator, uncovered until the surface dries slightly, then covered. The original's "set aside until cold" predates mechanical refrigeration; do not leave poached fish at room temperature for more than an hour or two.
- Half a pint of dressingOne cup of mayonnaise. Three sardines mashed to a paste into that cup makes a sauce closer to a thin remoulade; loosen it with a spoonful of the poaching liquid or lemon juice if it stiffens.
- Anchovy paste and sardinesUse a thin scrape; the paste is assertive and the sardine follows it. Sardines packed in olive oil, drained well on paper, sit better on the fish than water-packed ones.
- Salt in the poaching waterHalf a teaspoon for a panful is very light seasoning by current standards, but the anchovy and sardines that follow bring plenty of salt. Leave it as written rather than salting to taste.
- AssemblyDress at the last moment. Mayonnaise spooned over cold fish more than half an hour ahead will weep onto the lettuce and slacken the leaves.
Cold poached fish under mayonnaise was a fixture of late-Victorian and Edwardian entertaining, and "French" in an American cookbook of the period is often taken to signal just that: a dish dressed with a cold emulsified sauce in the manner of French service, rather than any specific regional origin. The layering of anchovy paste and tinned sardine over a mild white fish reflects how much the American larder had come to rely on canned goods by the century's end -- sardines in oil were among the earliest widely available tinned foods and were cheap enough to be treated as a garnish rather than a luxury.