This Sexy Mousse de Saumon Périgueux is Weird

Romantic Dinner for Two at Home – Part 1

Mousse de Saumon Périgueux is sexy and weird. However, if you do it right, for the right person, in the right atmosphere, you’ll get laid.

Asking someone on a date almost always means asking them to dinner. You’re saying to that person I want to watch you put food in your mouth and when you think about it, that’s aggressive. But if they accept your invitation, they’re saying, I want to watch you put food into your mouth too.

How someone eats says a lot about them

In poker, you’re always looking for your opponent’s ‘tell,’ the unconscious tick they exhibit when they know they’re going to win a hand. It helps you know when to raise the stakes or when to fold and look, I’m not saying dinner is a poker game. That’s ridiculous. But paying attention to how your date pays attention to their paté can tell you how sensual they are and that matters.

Food is sensual. So is sex. They partake of the very same sensations, the same ambience, the same vulnerability. There is lighting, and music, and candles, and aromas, and textures, and tastes. There is flavor and mouth feel. There is satiety. You take off your pants.

A romantic dinner is all about sex

If you’re planning to cook a romantic dinner for two at home, then you should open with a sexy dish. A single bite of flavor. You could do foie gras, and you should. But here’s an even sexier dish: salmon mousse flavored with black truffles.

Its texture is silken. Its fragrance is wild. Its flavor is sophisticated. The truffles take you deep into a forest. The salmon carries you into a roaring river. The crunch of the toasted crouton snaps you back to the table as you swoon just a little bit and open your eyes and boom, look at how sexy your date is now.

French Food is Sex on a Plate

Any food can be elevated to a level that’s super sensual, but French food got there first. Fernand Point, the chef who created this appetizer, got there second. Point is the great-grandfather of French Nouveau Cuisine which is the arrogant child of Escoffier who got there before Point.

But French cuisine knows that a dinner is more than just the food. It’s the pace and rhythm of the meal. It’s the pattern of the textures, of the flavors, of the sheer delight of what is laid on the plate before you.

A great French dinner, like a great date, always begins with a tease. This is the amuse-bouche (happy mouth), the single bite of goodness prepared by the chef that doesn’t even appear on the menu. She whipped together because she loves you and she wants you to be happy. \

Mousse de Saumon Périgueux is a Sensual Flavor Bomb

You’ve had salmon mousse. Probably at a cocktail party. Maybe at a pretty good restaurant. It was nice. A little ploop of salmon whipped with cream cheese on a crouton with some chives sprinkled on top. Yum.

But Point’s version is a level or two beyond that. He named it for the Périgueux region in Southwest France, comprised of four regions meeting together in the ancient city of Périgord. Périgueux is the Frenchiest part of France. It’s loaded with mystical tales of the Knights Templar, battlegrounds of the 100-year war, and the ghosts of ancient Rome. It’s also the cradle of French cuisine’s swankier flavors as this is where you get duck, geese, and truffles.

Truffles make Mousse de Saumon Périgueux special. The regional method marinates wild-caught salmon with the local black truffles. Despite nearly five whole minutes on Google, I can’t find the actual mousse as a recipe anywhere. I’m confused about Périgueux in the title. It may be that Point just tossed some truffles into his regular salmon mousse and thought, gee whiz, this tastes like that salmon from Périgueux.

But it may be that he was insane (he was insane) and drizzled Sauce Périgueux over his salmon mousse, which is crazy, because Sauce Périgueux is a brown sauce. Brown sauces are for beef and veal and maybe, just maybe, chicken. Not seafood. Definitely not a salmon mousse. But Point was a nutjob who played practical jokes and drank champagne all day. Who knows which version is right?

I’m betting it’s the truffle marinade.

I’m also sorry to inform you it’s the truffle marinade because I know you. You’re at this site because authenticity matters to you. You’re not going to chintz on cheap black summer truffles. You’re going to get tuber melanosporum, the Black Winter or Périgord truffle, the most expensive truffle on earth. I’m not kidding. You can get it from Marky’s, but it’s $952 a pound. I’m not going to insult you with links to less authentic winter truffle options. Save up. Plan ahead. Use the real thing.

Périgord black truffles are different from other black truffles. The knobby parts on the skin are more defined with deep crenelation between them. They have an aroma that will fill a room. Their flavor is nuclear level truffle. Marinating a wild caught salmon with these mothers is an act of decadence that would make David Bowie raise an eyebrow. There are few occasions that merit covering a fish with shavings of the most expensive edible mushroom on earth. But that’s kind of the point. That’s the message you’re sending with this the person sitting across the table: you’re so pretty you make me do stupid things.

You can buy salmon marinated with Périgord truffles

Because of course you can. Just check in with Fischwerker’s–but be prepared to shell out $150 per 1kg piece. Plus tax. Plus international shipping. If they ship it to you. So, sure, you can. But don’t or the ghost of Anthony Bourdain will glare at you from the dark shadows of your pantry.

In the following recipe, I’ve had to make some assumptions and marry some other recipes and Fraankestein this thing together because a recipe for Mousse Saumon de Périgueux isn’t out there.