Recipe February 2002
Salmon in red wine sauce
A French recipe from the Golden Age (17th century). Dutch
version of this recipe
After the Middle Ages the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries had little
to offer in the way of culinary innovation. The first really new cookbooks
since the Middle Ages did not appear before 1650. In France these cookbooks
were the first onset to the development of the classical French "haute
cuisine". Up til the middle of the seventeenth century medieval
classics Le Ménagier de
Paris and Le Viandier by Taillevent were reprinted regularly.
The recipe of this
month is emprunted from Le Cuisinier [...] ("The cook",
1656). This cookbook by
Pierre de Lune has many recipes wich still reflect medieval tastes.
However, there are a few recipes with important
innovations like the bouquet garni, called a
paquet by Pierre de Lune (thyme, chervil, parsley, cloves, and
on meatdays a piece of lard or bacon). Another innovation is the
"roux", a liaison of butter and flour to thicken sauces.
And then there is the ordering of the recipes, not by liturgical calender,
but by the four seasons, although there are still recipes for meat days
and for fast days, and the book ends with no less than 171 recipes (out of
900) for Good Friday.
The life of Pierre de Lune is a mystery. All that is known is that he
probably was in the service of the Duchess of Orléans and later of the
Duke of Rohan.
The recipe given below is
fairly cryptic: "faites sauce" or
"make a sauce" is not further specified. That is why I have
given three methods to achieve the thickening of the sauce. To thicken a sauce
with
breadcrumbs or with eggs are "oldfashioned" methods used already
in the Middle Ages, the use of a roux as
thickening was a fairly new method in 1656. The use of sugar and spices are
also relics of the medieval cuisine.
More recipes from seventeenth century France: Pea
Soup and Crême brûlée.
The original text from Pierre de Lune, Le cuisinier
[...],
(1656). Edition: L'art de la cuisine française au XVIIe siècle. (Paris, 1995), p.298.
Tranches de saumon à la sauce douce.
Coupez un saumon ou
ce que vous voulez par tranches et le farinez, et faites frire en beurre
affiné; faites sauce douce acec vin vermeil, sucre, cannelle, un peu de sel,
poivre, clous, citron vert, et mettez avec votre saumon; le faites
mitonner sur le feu; mettez en servant tranches de citron.
Salmon-steaks with sweet sauce.
Cut a salmon or wathever you like in slices and flour them, and fry them in
purified butter. Prepare a sweet sauce with bright-red wine,, sugar, cinnamon,
some salt, pepper, cloves, lime, and add (this sauce) to your salmon. Let it
simmer on the fire. When you serve (it), put slices of lemon on it.
4 fillets of
salmon (150 gram/1/3 pound each)
3 Tbsp. flour
40 gram (2 1/2 Tbsp.) butter
For the sauce:
3 decilitres (1 1/4 cup) young red wine (p.e. a Beaujolais)
2 slices of lime
.
30 gram (2 Tbsp.) sugar
1 stick of cinnamon
1 clove
black pepper and salt to taste
garnish:
slices of lime or lemon
To make the sauce:
Put all the ingredients for the sauce in a casserole. Bring
to the boil and simmer for fifteen minutes. Put the wine through a strainer. To
obtain a sauce, you have to use a method to thicken the spiced wine. The
original recipe keeps silent about this. The cooks who read the recipe knew how
to thicken a sauce, there was no need to give explicit instructions.
There were several ways to thicken a sauce: using bread as thickening agent (A), egg (B), or
a roux (C). The first two methods were oldfashioned, medieval techniques. The
thickening of sauces with a roux was modern, it is described for the first time
in the seventeenth century. However, flour had been used before to thicken sauces.
You can try the different methods, and experience the different aspects to the
eye and textures in the mouth that are caused by different ways of thickening
a sauce.
To thicken the sauce:
Method
A. 2 slices of white bread, lightly toasted, without the crust: Add to the wine
in the casserole. Let the bread absorb the wine, then push it through a strainer with the wine.
Method
B. 1 raw egg yolk: Stir the yolk, add some of the strained warm wine, then pour
the egg yolk with the added wine into the casserole, stirring the sauce continually until it has thickened
enough. The sauce must not boil.
Method
C. 30 gram butter and 30 gram flour: Melt butter (the butter must not turn
brown), add flour, and heat for a few minutes on a slow fire. Then pour in some
strained wine, stir until you have a smooth paste without lumps. Add some more wine,
stir again, and continue this way until all the wine is used.
Fry the salmon:
Sprinkle salt on the
fillets of salmon and leave to stand for fifteen minutes. Then pat dry
with kitchentowels. Dust the pieces of salmon lightly with flour. Heat butter in
a pan, and fry the salmon for five to ten minutes until they are done.
To serve:
Arrange the salmon on a
serving-dish, and decorate with halved slices of lemon and lime. Serve the
wine-sauce in a seperate sauce-boat, or pour the sauce over the fish. You
can also
pour the sauce in the serving-dish and arrange the salmon on top.
According to the original recipe the
salmon has to simmer in the sauce before serving.
However, when using fillets of salmon, the fish will be overdone. If using thick
salmon-steaks, you can follow the original recipe to the letter.
Livres en
Bouche. Cinq siècles d'art culinaire francais [...] (2001)
Pierre de Lune, Le cuisinier où il
est traitté de la veritable methode pour apprester toutes sortes de viandes,
gibier, volatiles, poissons, tant de mer que d'aeu douce: suivant les quatre
saisons de l'année. [...], from 1656. Edition: L'art de la cuisine française au XVIIe siècle.
(Paris, 1995)
(2001) 