Oh the 4th of July, one of my favorite food holidays.
Hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, turtle soup!
Wait, what was that last one? Turtle soup, poached Atlantic salmon in egg sauce.
Green peas and new potatoes in jackets. That is
what tradition says Abigail Adams served to John Adams
on that first Fourth of July in 1776. It's bollocks of course because they
weren't even in the same colony let alone the same city,
but you know somehow the tradition stuck and for years afterwards
in New England that's how people celebrated the Fourth of July
with that meal. So while I have no desire at this
juncture to make turtle soup i am going to show you how to make the second
course, the poached Atlantic salmon in egg sauce
using an 18th century recipe. Then we'll take a look at how according
to John Adams we're all celebrating this holiday
completely wrong, this time on Tasting History.
So this dish has two parts: the salmon basically the same in most of the 18th
century recipes that I found are very, very similar
but the egg sauce is quite a different story. I found several recipes both
American and English, but I figured since Abigail
Adams was our second First Lady we should go with a recipe from our
first First Lady, Martha Washington. The Martha Washington
Cookbook: A Compendium of Cookery and Reliable Recipes.
Now it wasn't actually published until 1892 but it's ostensibly based on
recipes from the kitchens of Martha Washington. So for our intents and
purposes I think these recipes will work just fine.
So once you hit that Like button, i'll wait, we'll get right down to it.
Egg sauce make a drawn butter; chop two hard-boiled eggs quite fine,
the white and the yolk separately, and stir it into the sauce before serving.
This is used for boiled fish or vegetables. Drawn butter, and eggs how
easy is that! Easiest recipe ever right? Ah I was naive.
As soon as my eyes scanned up the page it was like when Samuel
Jackson's character tries to open Dennis Nedry's computer,
because just above the egg sauce is the recipe for the drawn butter that we're
supposed to use and it's a little more complicated than
modern drawn butter. To make drawn butter put a half pint of
milk in a perfectly clean stew pan, and set it over a moderate fire; put into
a pint bowl a heaping tablespoon of wheat flour
quarter of a pound of sweet butter, and a saltspoonful of salt;
work these well with the back of a spoon then pour into it stirring it all the
time, half a pint of boiling water; when it is
smooth stir it into the boiling milk let it simmer for five minutes or more
and it is done. Drawn butter made after this recipe will
be found to be most excellent; it may be less rich by using less butter.
Less butter you say? Hahaha, tut tut my dear tut tut.
We do not use less butter on this show. So for the egg sauce here are the
ingredients you'll need: 2 hard-boiled eggs, 1 cup or 240
milliliters of whole milk, a heaping tablespoon of flour, 1 stick or
113 grams of softened butter, a half teaspoon of salt, and 1 cup of
boiling water. So add the milk to a small saucepan, and
then set it over medium heat so you don't scorch it.
Then in a small bowl add the flour, the butter,
and the salt and mix together with the back of the spoon just like the recipe
says. As things come together slowly add the
boiling water while continuing to stir. Once the
mixture is nice, and smooth pour it into the simmering milk and let
it simmer for about five minutes. Now if you're not noticing the sauce
thicken much, and it's not going to thicken
a lot, but it should start to thicken a bit. It's a hard word to say over and
over, thick, thick and thickening. Justt add a little bit more flour in
there, and that'll kind of get the process started.
Now as that thickens and simmers let's take a look at why
we are celebrating the 4th of July all wrong.
"Resolved that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be,
free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the
British Brown, and that all political connection
between them and the state of Great Britain
is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." Now that was the resolution that was
introduced to the second continental congress
by Virginian Richard Henry Lee on June 7th
1776. Four days later the Committee of Five
which was John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson,
Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman was established to draft what would become
the Declaration of Independence. Now if you have never seen
or heard the musical 1776 get thee to wherever you can listen or
see 1776, because it's such a fun show and
there is a great song in it where the Committee of Five
meets together to decide who's going to do the bulk of
the writing and John Adams is the first to do it because
it's kind of his baby, but he is disliked and obnoxious and seen as
a know-it-all so he's like i'm not going to do it, because then everyone will
hate it because i did it. So he pesters all the others to do it,
and they all have excuses "I had a baby just born" or "I'm bad at grammar" yada
yada, and finally it lands in the lap of
Thomas Jefferson because in John Adams own words
Jefferson had a "happy talent for composition
and singular felicity of expression". Don't you just love how people used to
talk back then. I feel so dumb when I read old letters.
Now as famous as Thomas Jefferson's document would become it was
actually Richard Henry Lee's proposal that needed to be voted on and was
passed on July 2nd by 12 of the 13 colonies,
because even in 1776 New York just could not get
it together. I love New York, used to live there but
we all know what i'm talking about. The next day July 3
John Adams wrote to Abigail Adams because she was in a different city and
colony which is how we know that she didn't make a dinner the next night.
And it said "The second day of July, 1776, will be the most
memorable epic in the history of America. i am apt to believe that it will be
celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It
ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance,
by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.
It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games,
sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations
from one end of this continent to the other from
this time forward forever more." Rousing but what a weird way to write to your
wife. Kind of impersonal, I can see why people
maybe didn't like him, he was always on. Anyway, Adams was pretty spot on
when he described how the holiday would be celebrated in the future,
but he got one key detail wrong, the date. Because even though it was passed on
July 2nd, it took two more days of arguing for
people to decide on the wording of the Declaration
of Independence which was the public message,
and even then they actually didn't get around to signing the thing until
a month later, and even then it trickled in
like it happened over the period of four months. So the next year on July 4th, 1777
the city of Philadelphia held the first annual Commemoration
of Independence irking John Adams to no end. The following year General
Washington celebrated the holiday by giving his troops double rations,
and a 13 gun salute and in 1781 the state of Massachusetts
John Adams own home state was the first to declare July 4th
a state holiday. That has got to hurt. And it's said that for the rest of his
life whenever John Adams was invited to a celebration of the 4th of
July, ever the Bitter Betty he would decline.
Now the real nail in the coffin, so to speak, happened in 1826
when at the age of 90 John Adams died on the 4th of July his last words were
"Thomas Jefferson still survives", he didn't know that five hours earlier
Thomas Jefferson had also died. True patriots,
and speaking of words that sound like patriots i just started a Patreon.
That was a terrible segue and i apologize to
Washington, Jefferson, everyone, Adams but um,
there it is. Anyway, if you want to support this channel I have a link below
to my patreon page. Now let's get back to the food shall we?
As your drawn butter finishes thickening go ahead and chop your hard-boiled eggs
into small pieces, and then toss them in the pot. Give
everything another minute or so to thicken up,
and then take it off the heat, or turn the heat to incredibly low
while you cook your salmon. Really the best thing would be to synchronize
everything so it's all done at the same time, but it's
kind of hard, and frankly I only have one camera so I can't do more than one thing
at the same time. Now in the same Martha Washington
cookbook there is a recipe for boiled salmon which
due to the rather limited culinary lexicon of the 18th century
we will consider the same as poached salmon and you'll see why.
Boiled salmon: the middle slice of salmon is the best,
sew it up neatly in a mosquito-net bag, and boil a quarter of an hour to the
pound in hot, salted water. When done, unwrap with care, and lay upon
a hot dish, taking care not to break it. Garnish with
parsley and sliced eggs. So now you can tell that the word boil
probably means something closer to poaching, or simmering because if you
even a pound of salmon if you boil that for 15 minutes
it's gonna be so tough, and gross and George Washington had false teeth, and I
don't think he could bite into that. Now another interesting thing about this
recipe is that it says to use a mosquito net bag.
I don't exactly know why. I mean i've heard of wrapping
salmon, and cooking it in either aluminum foil or
parchment but never a porous bag, but i wanted to give it a shot so I
actually got one of these uh little bags that's actually made for making
almond milk. I'll put a link in the description,
because 1) all the mosquito netting that i could find was
like enough to cover a bed, and 2) it was all made of like polyurethane
and stuff and I was worried I was gonna poison myself. So these are made out of
cotton um which I think is safe, hopefully
fingers crossed. So for this salmon recipe all you need
is some salmon i'm going to do two pieces, because I want to try one with
the bag, and one without, and then water with salt in it so mix
the salt into the water and place it on low heat
until you get the barest of simmers you want this to be about 175 to 180
degrees fahrenheit, which is about 80 degrees celsius.
It's really important to keep it kind of in this range otherwise
you're going to overcook your salmon, I'm just telling you right now.
So a great way to to be able to tell this
is 1) don't let it boil because then you've obviously gone over the amount,
and 2) if you've got a candy thermometer this is a great time to use
it. So if you're going to use a bag like the
recipe suggests slip the fish into the bag now,
and put it into the water. Now the length of time that the fish is going to spend
in the water is going to depend on the size of the
filet. The recipe says 15 minutes to the pound.
My fish was not a pound, I'm just one person so i don't need that much
salmon, but you can tell when the fish is done if you take it out,
and you stick the tip of a knife in and pull it out. If the tip is warm,
it's done. If the tip is cold, put it back in the water
then as soon as your salmon is done take it out put it on a warm plate,
and pour your egg sauce over the top, then add a touch of parsley for a bit of
sophistication, and if you have a founding father around
now is the time to serve it to him. If you don't then you get to eat it
yourself, lucky you. So here is our poached salmon
with egg sauce. I'm going to take a bite of each of the salmon, because I want to
see did that bag do anything, or is it just
nice to be able to help take it out of the water. So this is
the first salmon in the bag, get some
sauce, and some egg on there.
It is soft and flaky, and wonderful. The salmon is wonderful
and then the sauce it reminds me of hollandaise, but much
lighter, not as creamy but it has that kind of,
it has a little bit of that flavor. I do think,
and maybe in the future they figured this out,
a little spice of some sort uh might help, or
an herb like tarragon, or chervil, or something something.
Parsley, and this is Italian parsley that I use, but parsley doesn't
give much flavor to me. Now here is the second salmon that was
done without the bag.
Interesting, the flavor is pretty much the same but it's a little
more well done, and I was very very careful to watch the
the temperatures, so maybe the bag actually did something,
maybe not. I don't know, either way it's delicious and definitely a meal fit
for a Founding Father. Now after your salmon you're gonna
probably want some dessert so might I suggest
18th century everlasting syllabub. I will put a video, or it'll be down here in
the corner it'll just come up as the next video so
I'll see you over there, or i'll see you next time
on Tasting History.