Salmon à la Victoria (1894)
Reader ratingsSalmon slices cooked in a ham and vegetable stock with red wine, the stock reduced to a buttered sauce, served with lobster: Ranhofer’s Epicurean, 1894.
- Recipe makes
- 4 fish-course servings
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
The stock simmers for 30 minutes and can be made in the morning and kept chilled. The fish then takes about 10 minutes, and the sauce reduces while the lobster warms.
Salmon steaks with lobster and a red wine sauce.
The story behind the recipe
James Parton, who was at the dinner, called the fish “our trout cooked so as to do honor to Queen Victoria.” Ranhofer’s menu for the same dinner, printed in his Epicurean in 1894, calls it Saumon à la Victoria and sets it beside a bass in the Italian style. The fish recipe in his book carries that same name, and it is the one given here.
Why cook salmon in a meat stock?
The book doesn’t say why the Queen’s name went on it, and it gives no history. What it shows is a dish of two seafoods. The salmon is surrounded by sautéed lobster and small anchovy tartlets, and the sauce is finished with lobster butter.
Ranhofer’s “mirepoix stock,” the liquid the salmon cooks in, is made of fat pork, butter, lean veal and unsmoked ham, carrots and onions, herbs, garlic, cloves and mace, fried golden and then simmered two hours with white wine and Madeira. “This is the essence of meats and vegetables,” he wrote, and he used it “for moistening meats, fishes, etc.” For the Victoria, the fish cooks in this stock moistened with red wine.
Printed in 1894, the recipe can’t say what was on the plates in 1868, or even which fish.
Read more about this recipe
Making it today
Our stock is a short one: the ham, vegetables, herbs and spices of Ranhofer’s mirepoix, without the pork and veal, simmered half an hour with chicken stock and red wine. Plain cold butter finishes the sauce in place of his lobster butter, and the lobster itself goes around the fish as he directs. The anchovy tartlets are left out. Salmon steaks cut half an inch thick match his “slices of fish” and his eight to ten minutes.
The fish course was where Parton thought the dinner should have stopped; the rest of his argument, and Ranhofer’s menu, are in What Was Served When Dickens Dined at Delmonico’s in 1868?. For the salmon of a later dinner, with a sauce of cream and egg, see the Titanic’s Poached Salmon with Mousseline Sauce (1912).
Trim slices of fish, each about half an inch in thickness; cook them in a mirepoix stock (No. 419), moistened with red wine, and when done, which will take from eight to ten minutes, drain them off, and strain the stock; reduce this, and despumate it; just when ready to serve stir in a piece of lobster butter (No. 580). Serve the fish, surrounding it with sautéd lobster escalops, and small anchovy tartlets; cover the lobster with half of the sauce, and pour the remainder in a sauce-boat to be served at the same time.
Recipe makes: 4 fish-course servings
Ingredients
For 4 fish-course servings. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for 4 fish-course servings.
Mirepoix stock
- Butter, for the mirepoix2 tbsp
- Unsmoked cooked ham, cut in small dice2 oz
- Carrot, cut in small dice3.5 oz
- Onion, cut in small dice2 oz
- Garlic, crushed1 clove
- Parsley3 sprigs
- Thyme2 sprigs
- Bay leaf1
- Clove1
- Coarsely ground black pepper1/4 tsp
- Low-sodium chicken stock2 cups
- Dry red wine1 cup
Fish
- Salmon steaks, cut half an inch thick1.5 lb
Sauce and garnish
- Cold butter, for the sauce3 tbsp
- Cooked lobster meat, sliced9 oz
- Butter, for the lobster1 tbsp
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 2 tbsp butter, for the mirepoix
- 2 oz unsmoked cooked ham, cut in small dice
- 3 1/2 oz carrot, cut in small dice
- 2 oz onion, cut in small dice
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 3 sprigs parsley
- 2 sprigs thyme
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 whole clove
- 1/4 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
- 2 cups low-sodium chicken stock
- 1 cup dry red wine
- 1 1/2 lb salmon steaks, cut half an inch thick
- 3 tbsp cold butter, for the sauce
- 9 oz cooked lobster meat, sliced
- 1 tbsp butter, for the lobster
Equipment
- Medium saucepan for the stock
Fine sieve- Wide shallow pan with a lid that holds the fish in one layer
- Wide spatula
- Small skillet for the lobster
Instant-read thermometer- Warm platter and a sauce boat
Instructions
Melt the butter for the mirepoix in the medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the ham, carrot, onion, garlic, parsley, thyme, bay leaf and clove, season with the black pepper, and fry, stirring often, for 10 to 12 minutes, until the vegetables are soft and golden.
Pour in the low-sodium chicken stock and the red wine, bring to a boil and simmer gently, uncovered, for 30 minutes.
Strain the stock through the fine sieve into the wide shallow pan, pressing on the vegetables. Bring it to a bare simmer over medium heat.
Slide in the salmon steaks in one layer; if the liquid does not reach halfway up them, turn them once at the midpoint. Cover the pan and keep the liquid just trembling, never boiling. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until the fish is opaque, flakes at the center bone and reads 145°F (63°C) in the thickest part.
Lift the steaks onto the warm platter with the spatula, cover them loosely and keep them warm.
Strain the cooking liquid through the fine sieve into the rinsed medium saucepan and boil it hard, skimming off the scum as it rises, until it has reduced by about two-thirds and coats a spoon lightly.
While the sauce reduces, melt the butter for the lobster in the small skillet over medium heat and warm the lobster meat in it, turning the slices, until hot through, 165°F (74°C).
Take the sauce off the heat and whisk in the cold butter for the sauce, a piece at a time. Taste for salt.
Arrange the lobster around the salmon, spoon half of the sauce over the lobster and pour the rest into the sauce boat. Serve at once.
Nutrition
640calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- 4 fish-course servings
- Servings
- 4
Estimated per serving (4) from USDA FoodData Central values for Atlantic salmon, cooked lobster, ham, butter, carrot, onion, chicken stock and red wine (alcohol partly reduced).
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Scales with the fish. A larger batch needs a wider pan so the slices stay in one layer, and the sauce takes longer to reduce.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.
Ranhofer gives the thickness of the slices and the cooking time, but no weight of fish; 1 1/2 pounds for four fish-course servings is ours, and so is every garnish amount. His mirepoix stock (No. 419) is a large two-hour preparation of fat pork, butter, veal, unsmoked ham, carrots, onions, herbs, garlic, cloves, mace and mushroom parings, moistened with three quarts of “remoistening” (No. 189, a secondary stock), a pint of white wine and a pint of Madeira; ours keeps the ham, vegetables, herbs, garlic and clove, drops the pork, veal, mace, mushroom parings, white wine and Madeira, uses bought chicken stock and simmers 30 minutes. Plain butter replaces his lobster butter (No. 580, spiny-lobster shells pounded with butter), and the anchovy tartlets are left out. Contains fish, shellfish and milk. Chill leftovers within 2 hours and use them within a day.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
After Charles Ranhofer, The Epicurean (New York, 1894), no. 1243, Salmon à la Victoria, with his mirepoix stock, no. 419; the fish named on Delmonico’s menu for Charles Dickens
See the original pages (scan at Internet Archive) (opens in a new tab)
Recipe details
- Course
- Fish course
- Dish family
- Fish & Seafood
- Era
- 19th century
- Source decade
- 1890s
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
- Occasion
- State banquet
- Season
- Spring