Jane Grigson's Fish Book - Jane Grigson [150]
At this point, the professional caterer will mask the salmon with a chaudfroid (jellied mayonnaise*) and decorative motifs from the higher kitsch of catering. That is his fun, but it does not have to be ours. It has its practical side, of course, in that the salmon can be dressed up like Tom Kitten hours in advance, without drying up. When you run a business, that is a perfectly proper and decent precaution to take.
A simpler way, that the neat-fingered can undertake, is to brush the skinned and filleted fish with aspic and cover it with transparent half-moons of small unpeeled cucumber, to look like scales. A friend of mine does them like this, and they are a joy to behold. They have a debonair, frilled appearance like a brushed child at the beginning of a party.
My own preference is to leave the salmon alone, removing the skin and bone for the sake of easy serving, and putting a line of sprigs of fennel or dill or tarragon, whatever is appropriate or best in the garden, down the lateral line. Or else a bed or garland of herbs.
There is much to be said for cucumber salad with cold salmon. A reader once took me to task for suggesting that one might try salting the cucumber slices first: he said that the crisp fresh slices of recently cut cucumber were just right with salmon. You must take your choice.
When it comes to cucumber with salmon, I prefer them both hot or at least warm. The cucumber cut longways into slices, or into little batons, and quickly heated through in clarified butter*, then well peppered.
Florentine fennel, blanched and finished in butter, still a little crisp, is another good vegetable with the best salmon. A hint of pastis can be added to the sauce, but very little.
CAVEACH OF SALMON
This way of treating salmon is more like a seviche (p. 348) than a true caveach which consists of frying fish and then pickling it in vinegar – but one can see the attraction of the name and why Kenneth Ball used it to, as it were, domesticate, or anglicize, this really very foreign dish for his menu at Thornbury Castle. What I like about it especially is his manner of cutting the salmon into thin steaks. Marinaded fish of this type is usually presented in transparent veils – this cut is closer to the Japanese sashimi style.
Serves 8–10
750 g (1½ lb) centre cut of salmon
175 ml (6 fl oz) dry white wine
1 tablespoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
juice of 1 lemon
juice of 1 orange
¼ medium onion, finely chopped
¼ clove garlic, finely chopped to a mash
4 tablespoons very best olive oil
shreds of orange and lemon peel, 16–20 slices of avocado pear and a few leaves of chicory or endive to garnish
Half-chill the salmon, remove the fillets from each side of the backbone and skin them. Cut each fillet down into slices of just over ½ cm (¼ inch). Arrange them in a single layer in a shallow plastic box or on a large plate.
Mix together the remaining ingredients, apart from the garnish, and pour over the salmon. Cover with the lid or plastic film and leave in the refrigerator for 5 hours, turning the slices every so often. If you want to keep the salmon for longer, I find it is best to scrape off the onion and garlic after 6 or 7 hours, put the salmon on to a fresh plate and strain a little of the marinade over it.
Arrange the slices on a dish or plates with the garnish ingredients. Serve very cold but not chilled to tastelessness.
ESCALOPE OF COLD SALMON MAÎTRE ALBERT
Anjou is a country of just the right douceur to have produced that good king, René, Count of Anjou and Provence, King of Sicily. In warlike times, he loved painting and