table-spoonfuls of butter melted in hot water.
Butter a sheet of foolscap paper on both sides, and wrap the fish up in it, pinning the ends securely together. Lay in the baking-pan, and pour six or seven spoonfuls of butter-and-water over it. Turn another pan over all, and steam in a moderate oven from three-quarters of an hour to an hour, lifting the cover, from time to time, to baste and assure yourself that the paper is not burning. Meanwhile, have ready in a saucepan a cup of cream, in which you would do well to dissolve a bit of soda a little larger than a pea. This is a wise precaution whenever cream is to be boiled. Heat this in a vessel placed within another of hot water; thicken with a heaping teaspoonful of corn starch, add a tablespoonful of butter, pepper and salt to taste, a liberal pinch of minced parsley, and when the fish is unwrapped and dished, pour half slowly over it, sending the rest to table in a boat. If you have no cream, use milk, and add a beaten egg to the thickening.
Salmon Steaks or Cutlets (fried).
Cut slices from the middle of the fish, an inch thick.
1 table-spoonful butter to each slice, for frying.
Beaten egg and fine cracker crumbs, powdered to dust, and peppered with cayenne.
Wipe the fish dry, and salt slightly. Dip in egg, then in cracker crumbs, fry very quickly in hot butter. Drain off every drop of grease, and serve upon a dish lined with hot, clean paper, fringed at the ends.
Sprinkle green parsley in bunches over it.
The French use the best salad-oil in this receipt, instead of butter.
Salmon Steaks or Cutlets (broiled).
Three or four slices of salmon.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
½ cup drawn butter, thickened with browned flour, and seasoned with tomato catsup.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Rub the steaks with the butter, pepper and salt slightly. Broil upon a gridiron over a very clear fire, turning often, and rubbing each side with butter as it comes uppermost. When nicely browned, lay on a hot dish, and pour the sauce over them.
Salmon Cutlets en Papillote.
Dry and lay in melted butter ten minutes. Dust lightly with cayenne pepper, and wrap securely in well buttered or oiled white paper, stitching down the ends of each cover. Fry in nice dripping or sweet lard. They will be done in ten minutes, unless very thick. Have ready clean, hot papers, fringed at both ends. Clip the threads of the soiled ones when you have drained them free from fat, slip dexterously and quickly, lest they cool in the process, into the fresh covers, give the fringed ends a twist, and send up on a heated dish.
Salmon en papillote is also broiled by experts. If you attempt this, be careful that the paper is so well greased and the cutlets turned so often that it does not scorch. The least taste of burnt paper ruins the flavor of the fish, which it is the object of the cover to preserve.
Salmon in a Mould. (Very good.)
1 can preserved salmon or an equal amount of cold, left from a company dish of roast or boiled.
4 eggs beaten light.
4 table-spoonfuls butter—melted, but not hot.
½ cup fine bread-crumbs.
Season with pepper, salt and minced parsley.
Chop the fish fine, then rub it in a Wedgewood mortar, or in a bowl with the back of a silver spoon, adding the butter until it is a smooth paste. Beat the bread-crumbs into the eggs and season before working all together. Put into a buttered pudding-mould, and boil or steam for an hour.
Sauce for the Above.
1 cupful milk heated to a boil, and thickened with a table-spoonful corn-starch.
The liquor from the canned salmon, or if you have none, double the quantity of butter.
1 great spoonful of butter.
1 raw egg.
1 teaspoonful anchovy, or mushroom, or tomato catsup.
1 pinch of mace and one of cayenne.
Put the egg in last and very carefully, boil one minute to cook it, and when the pudding is turned from the mould, pour over it. Cut in slices at table.
A nice supper-dish.
Stewed Salmon.
1 can preserved fresh salmon, or remains of roast or boiled.
1 cup drawn butter.
2 eggs well beaten.
1 teaspoonful anchovy or Harvey’s sauce.
Cayenne and salt to taste.
2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped fine.
Some capers or minced green pickles.
Stew the salmon in the can liquor, or a very little water, slightly salted, ten minutes. Have ready, in a larger saucepan, the drawn butter thickened with rice-flour or corn-starch. Season and stir in cautiously the beaten raw eggs, then the salmon. Let it come to a gentle boil, add the chopped eggs and pickles and turn into a covered deep dish.
Or—
Add the hard-boiled eggs and capers to the salmon, with a table-spoonful of butter, toss up lightly with a fork, pepper slightly, and heap in the centre of a hot flat dish, then pour the boiling sauce over all.
It is very appetizing served in either way.
Mayonnaise of Salmon.
