Okay, usually my kid helps me with these Georgian-era recipes. He had no interest in salmon. Not in cooking it, not in eating it, not even in commenting as he watched me. I guess he'll be back when I tackle a dessert again.
Which is too bad because this recipe was so easy.
Usually, I do a recipe from Martha Lloyd's cookbook so we can assume it's something Jane Austen might have eaten, but not this one. This salmon recipe was from a cookbook popular in Jane's lifetime. This broiled salmon recipe comes from a 1796 edition of Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. It was a perennial best seller since it was first published in 1747, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that Jane Austen might have eaten it.
My salmon pieces, as you can see, were not even close to the same thickness, so the broiling times ended up being different, but not by a lot. I seasoned the salmon with salt and pepper and lightly dusted them with flour. I melted about 2 tablespoons of butter in a baking dish in the microwave and then coated the salmon. I put them skin-side down under a broiler set on low.
I don't usually dredge things in flour and coat them in butter, but you didn't need a ton of either to get the salmon crispy. They cooked in about 10 minutes. The one that was thinner was perfect, the one that was thicker was a little overdone. I basted them about halfway to keep them from getting dried out.
My husband and I decided it was fine. Kinda boring. Normally, if I cook salmon, there'd be a soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and honey marinade. No butter. But that's not to say that Georgian food was plain. In the same Jane Austen's Cookbook where I found this recipe, there's a chicken curry. But this salmon is remarkably easy and not dissimilar to a modern recipe you might find doing a quick google search.
Maybe I should make the curry or something else more adventurous next time. What sort of dish shouuld I try next time? But to get my kid to help me again, I think I'll have to make a dessert.