Salmon, Served Chilled in the Summer
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Recipe submitted by Countess Mistress Tessa of the Gardens
Salmon, whole; one or more 2-&-a-half to 3 pounds each / approx 2 inches thick
Oranges and or Lemons, sliced; one per fish
Season to taste: salt, lemon pepper, parsley, thyme, rosemarie, dill, as you wish.
Some period recipes suggest cinnamon, ginger)
Potatoes, cut in three-quarter-inch thick roundels to absorb the oils, then discard
Juice of the vine, if desired; approx one cup per salmon
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
Of a whole salmon, remove his head, major fins, scales, and entrails. Wash hem well. Into his body cavity, place herbs and seasonings. Sprinkle more seasonings on its outside top. Make a trough of foil longer than the whole salmon, with a 3" to 4" wide *pleat* the length of the foil. Into the bottom of the trough, place thick potato roundels (which will absorb the oils then be discarded); on top of those, place citrus-slice roundels. Drown hem in one cup fruit of the vine, if desired.
Enclose the foil around hem and seal the foil by folding it together along the top and at each end. Place each foil-wrapped fish onto a broiler pan or baking sheet. Bake at 450 degrees F, 10 minutes per inch thickness of body cavity /or per pound (if fresh); if frozen, bake 20 minutes per inch thickness/or per pound. To remove most of the bones when cooked, open the foil envelope, gently lay open the fish, and take a grip on vertebrae at the "head" end; with care, lift out the bone frame. The most of its entirety will lift away, and you are holding the typical cat-ate-it skeletal remains of a fish.
Reseal the foil envelope and set it in a place to chill the cooked fish. (Refrigerator, several hours.) When ready to serve hem whole on a platter, lift hem from the foil, lay hem solitary or alongside another, decorate hem with twisted citrus slices. His wholeness may ceremoniously go to (1) a summer's buffet chilled, whereupon partakers may divide him, or,(2) go to one hungry cadet/son.
Three chilled salmon (included on a buffet with melon chunks, cheeses, breads, green beans with mint & almond, cabboges salat, cold potatoe salat, Cadet Chocolate Pie and Fellowship Pie [other recipes to come] and iced tea) feeds and pleases a crowd of twenty-five on a very hot and humid weapons practice noonday in Bordermarch. Starting the day ahead, it takes right at one hour to clean, prepare, put into the oven, wait for cooking, then remove, several whole salmon. I prepared four partially thawed salmon at one time. From start to finish, it took 55 minutes to tak them out of the oven. The resulting chilling time worked well "over night."
Research, preparation, and serving of this particular recipe includes the following resources: Cooks Guild. Caerthen Book of Cookery, 1979. de Baillie.
How to Cook Forsoothly, 1979. Frere, edited.
A proper Newe Booke of Cookery of the Sixteenth Century. Frome of Cury: A Roll of Ancient English Cookery c 1390. McKendry.
Seven Hundred Years of English Cooking, 1973. Napier.
A Noble Boke of Cookery Reprinted VerBatim from a Rare Ms in the Holkham Collection, 1882.
Noble Booke off Cookery Ffor a Prynce Houssolde, c 1470. Sass. To the King's Taste, 1975.
Satisfied guests at Mountain-Gate, summer, 2000.
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