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By Root 942 0

’s Dictionary of 1726: ‘Scale the salmon, wash and dry him, chine him and season him with salt, pepper, ginger, cloves and mace; lay him on a sheet of paste, and form it in the shape of a salmon, lay in slices of ginger, large mace, and butter upon the fish, and turn up the other half of your sheet of paste on the back, closing them on the belly-side from head to tail, bringing him into proportion with head, fins, gills and tail: scale him, leave a funnel to pour in butter, and when it is baked, set it by to cool.’

A friend who was preparing the dish for visitors who do not like raisins had the brilliant idea of substituting lime. The juice and thin-shredded zest of a lime are added to the butter and ginger: juice and shreds of a second lime are added to melted, skimmed butter to make a sauce. I like this variation very much, lime gives a skip to the substantial delicacy of the dish. Here, though, is the true original version, as sent to me by George Perry-Smith who keeps it on the menu of his Riverside restaurant at Helford in Cornwall.

Serves 6

1–1¼ kg (2–2½ lb) piece of wild salmon, skinned, filleted

salt, pepper

125 g (4 oz) butter, lightly salted

4 well-drained knobs of ginger in syrup, chopped

30 g (1 oz) currants

PASTRY

500 g (1 lb) plain flour

275 g (9 oz) butter

egg yolk, beaten, to glaze

SAUCE

600 ml (1 pt) single cream

2 egg yolks

2 level teaspoons Dijon mustard

2 level teaspoons plain flour

125 g (4 oz) softened butter

juice of 1 lemon

½ small onion, finely chopped

1 small bunch each of tarragon, parsley and chervil

salt, pepper

Season the two pieces of salmon with salt and pepper on both cut and skinned sides. Mash butter with the ginger and currants. Spread half on the cut side of one fillet: put the second fillet on top, like a sandwich, cut side down, and spread the remaining butter mixture on top.

Make the pastry in the usual way, mixing it with iced water. Roll out and wrap neatly round the salmon, cutting away surplus lumps of pastry. If you are using a small salmon or a tailpiece and are feeling fanciful, you could try John Nott’s idea of making it look like a pastry fish, marking scales, etc. with the tip of a sharp knife. Brush with egg yolk. Chill until just before the meal.

Preheat the oven to gas 8, 230°C (450°F). Bake for about 30 minutes – time will depend on the thickness of the salmon. Test it after 20 minutes with a skewer. By this time a tailpiece may be done.

To make the sauce, whirl the ingredients in a blender. Cook in a double saucepan, stirring, until thickened. Serve a cucumber salad as well.

SALMON BUTTERFLY GRILL

In most trades – cooking, the law, plumbing, medicine – people plod along steadily, taking the day as it comes, thankful to be paid for doing what they would be happy to do unpaid if they had the means of survival. Occasionally, though, some bit of information, some discovery changes the shape of the trivial round, giving it a new aspect. Perhaps because I never had any training as a cook, this happens to me with a particular force once or even twice a year if I am lucky. As far as fish is concerned, the discoveries often seem to be concerned with salmon – they can often then be applied to other fish, sea bass for instance.

The first was when we visited a friend in Denmark, in 1966, and she gave us gravadlax, and the recipe, which went into the Observer four years later, and into Good Things. The second came from a home economist connected with fish cookery who told me how to cook whole salmon by bringing it to the boil, then removing the whole thing from the stove, so that the fish could continue to cook in the water as it cooled. A third came from Helen Burke who many years ago pointed out that when grilling salmon steaks, there is no need to turn them over. And the fourth – this recipe from a friend in Aix-en-Provence, a brilliant cook – disclosed a foolproof method of grilling whole farmed salmon, or large pieces of salmon, which minimizes its faults of softness