Boulestin was a failed actor, great raconteur, cookbook writer and superb Soho restaurateur who catered to the louche side of “Tout” London Society in the nineteen thirties.
His restaurant, “Boulestin’s,” was a stunning place with yellow walls and curtains in a deeper shade of the same tone, made from silk with a design of Dufy’s called “Paris.” I mention the color because it was much copied at the time, and also by me at “Stars” restaurant in San Francisco fifty years later. Except I did not have the courage to cover the paint in cheap varnish as he did (by mistake), thereby achieving that a dark, smoky, old amber color that gave the room a certain stature of age and became the rage for restaurants for the next thirty years.
By “society” here I mean Douglas Fairbanks and Gertrude Lawrence, the fascist Oswald Mosely and the Mitfords (the Duke of Devonshire only reluctantly along), the Baron Schroeder (after a polo match, flavoring his Veuve Clicquot “Grande Dame” with peaches), Robbie Ross telling stories of Oscar Wilde and his Bosie, Lawrence (of Arabia) still brushing the sand out of his headdress, the divinely beautiful young Australian Percy Grainger, not playing the piano, but pleading with that catholic Duke from up north to keep his hands on his Boulestin omelette (with creamed mushrooms) instead of on his knee.
Percy
Another Percy (this one the page-boy Esme Percy) stroking his lyre while still trying to make up his (and the admiring customers’) mind whether he was Apollo or Aphrodite.
And Lady Diana Cooper, her Poiret compact brimming with cocaine, helping out her husband Duff after a particularly strenuous Parliamentary question-time.
You can read about all of this in Boulestin’s Ease & Endurance (1978) a translation of his A Londres Naguere, where he writes of the “near-Eastern origin” of this dish, so loved by his customers, but by none so much as the Levantine bankers sprawled lavishly across the old gold banquettes.
The other book is Simple French Cooking, a title paraphrased decades later by that most prefect writer and home cook, and my mentor and friend, the American Francophile, Richard Olney.
Society Salmon
Serves 4
4 Six-ounce pieces fresh wild Salmon boneless filets
4 pieces Parchment paper, cut in 12-inch rounds
6 ounces Unsalted butter
½ tsp Freshly grated lemon zest
2 Egg yolks
4 tablespoons Whipping cream
1 tablespoon Freshly-squeezed lemon juice
4 tablespoons Sevruga or Oscetra caviar
Sea salt, freshly-ground white pepper
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
Fold each of the parchment in half. Put each salmon piece on a piece of parchment just next to the fold, top each with a half-ounce of butter, and season.
Fold over the other half of the paper, and fold the edges together, making little overlapping folds starting at one end and progressively folding as you go.
Photo courtesy Rachel Cooks
Put the packages on a sheet pan and bake for 15 minutes. Remove them from the oven and let sit 5 minutes.
Put the egg yolks, lemon juice, 1 tablespoon of cold water, and the remaining butter in a non-reactive double boiler, and whisk over boiling water for 2 minutes until all the butter is incorporated. Whisk in the cream, then, off the heat, gently fold in the caviar.
Open the bags and slip each piece of fish with all its juices out onto hot plates.
Spoon the caviar sauce over each piece of salmon.
Don't see the cream..how much?
Where is the cream in ingredient list?