To each gallon water, 8 oz. salt. Salmon, 2 to 3 lbs. (thick), 1/2 hour; 8 to 10 lbs., 1-1/4 hour; small, or thin fish, less time.
SALMON À LA GENEVESE.
A fashionable mode of serving salmon at the present day is to divide the larger portion of the body into three equal parts; to boil them in water, or in a marinade; and to serve them dished in a line, but not close together, and covered with a rich Genevese sauce (for which see Chapter [V].) It appears to us that the skin should be stripped from any fish over which the sauce is poured, but in this case it is not customary.
CRIMPED SALMON.
Cut into slices an inch and a half, or two inches thick, the body of a salmon quite newly caught; throw them into strong salt and water as they are done, but do not let them soak in it; wash them well, lay them on a fish-plate, and put them into fast boiling water, salted and well skimmed. In from ten to fifteen minutes they will be done. Dish them on a napkin, and send them very hot to table with lobster sauce, and plain melted butter; or with the caper fish-sauce of Chapter [V]. The water should be salted as for salmon boiled in the ordinary way, and the scum should be cleared off with great care after the fish is in.
In boiling water, 10 to 15 minutes.
SALMON À LA ST. MARCEL.
Separate some cold boiled salmon into flakes, and free them entirely from the skin; break the bones, and boil them in a pint of water for half an hour. Strain off the liquor, put it into a clean saucepan and stir into it by degrees when it begins to boil quickly, two ounces of butter mixed with a large teaspoonful of flour, and when the whole has boiled for two or three minutes add a teaspoonful of essence of anchovies, one of good mushroom catsup, half as much lemon-juice or chili vinegar, a half saltspoonful of pounded mace, some cayenne, and a very little salt. Shell from half to a whole pint of shrimps, add them to the salmon, and heat the fish very slowly in the sauce by the side of the fire, but do not allow it boil. When it is very hot, dish and send it quickly to table. French cooks, when they re-dress fish or meat of any kind, prepare the flesh with great nicety, and then put it into a stewpan, and pour the sauce upon it, which is, we think, better than the more usual English mode of laying it into the boiling sauce. The cold salmon may also be re-heated in the cream sauce of [V]., or in the Mâitre d’Hôtel sauce which follows it; and will be found excellent with either. This receipt is for a moderate sized dish.
SALMON BAKED OVER MASHED POTATOES.
We are informed by a person who has been a resident in Ireland, that the middle of a salmon is there often baked over mashed potatoes, from which it is raised by means of a wire stand, as meat is in England. We have not been able to have it tried, but an ingenious cook will be at no loss for the proper method of preparing, and the time of cooking it. The potatoes are sometimes merely pared and halved; the fish is then laid upon them.