FISH.
ENTRÉES AND RELISHES OF FISH.
What to do with Cold Fish.
1 cup drawn butter with an egg beaten in.
2 hard-boiled eggs.
Mashed potato—(a cupful will do.)
1 cupful cold fish—cod, halibut or shad.
Roe of cod or shad, and 1 table-spoonful of butter.
1 teaspoonful minced parsley.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Dry the roe, previously well boiled. Mince the fish fine, and season. Work up the roe with butter and the yolks of the boiled eggs. Cut the white into thin rings. Put a layer of mashed potato at the bottom of a buttered deep dish—then, alternate layers of fish, drawn butter (with the rings of white embedded in this), roe,—more potato at top. Cover the dish and set in a moderate oven until it smokes and bubbles. Brown by removing the cover for a few minutes. Send to table in the baking-dish, and pass pickles with it.
Fried Roes of Cod or Shad.
2 or three roes. If large, cut them in two.
1 pint of boiling water.
Salt and pepper.
1 raw egg, well beaten.
½ cup fine bread-crumbs.
3 table-spoonfuls sweet lard, or dripping.
Wash the roes and dry with a soft, clean cloth. Have ready the boiling water in which should be put the vinegar, salt, and pepper. Boil the roes in this for ten minutes, then plunge at once into very cold water, slightly salted. Wipe dry again; when they have lain about two minutes in this, roll in the beaten egg, then the bread-crumbs, and fry to a fine brown in the fat.
Sauce for the above.
1 cup drawn butter, into which beat a teaspoonful of anchovy sauce, juice of half a lemon, and a pinch of cayenne pepper, with a little minced parsley. Boil up once, and send around in a gravy-boat.
Roes of Cod or Shad Stewed.
Wash the roes, and parboil in water with a little vinegar, pepper, and salt added. It should be at a hard boil when the roes go in. Boil five minutes, lay in very cold water for two, wipe, and transfer to a clean saucepan, with enough melted butter to half cover them. Set it in a vessel of boiling water, cover closely, and let it stew gently ten minutes. Should it boil too fast the roes will shrink and toughen. While they are stewing prepare the—
Sauce.
1 cup of boiling water.
2 teaspoonfuls corn-starch, or rice flour, mixed in cold water.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
1 teaspoonful chopped parsley.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce, or good catsup.
Juice of half a lemon.
Beaten yolks of two eggs.
Salt and cayenne pepper.
Stir the corn-starch smoothly into the boiling water, and set it over the fire, stirring constantly until it thickens up well. Add pepper, salt, butter, and parsley; mix well together, put in the lemon-juice and catsup, lastly the roes, which should have been frequently turned in the melted butter. Set within a vessel of boiling water for about eight minutes, but do not let the roes and sauce boil fast. Take them up, lay on a flat, hot dish; add to the sauce the beaten yolks, stir fast and well over the fire for two minutes, pour over the roes, and serve.
Should the receipt for so simple a dish seem needlessly prolix, I beg the reader to remember that I have made it minute to save her time and trouble.
Scalloped Roes.
3 large roes.
1 cup of drawn butter and yolks of 3 hard-boiled eggs.
1 teaspoonful anchovy paste or essence.
1 teaspoonful of parsley.
Juice of half a lemon.
1 cup of bread-crumbs.
Salt and cayenne pepper to taste.
Boil the roes in water and vinegar, as directed in former receipts; lay in cold water five minutes, then wipe perfectly dry. Break them up with the back of a silver spoon, or in a Wedgewood mortar, but not so fine as to crush the eggs. When ready, they should be a granulated heap. Set aside while you pound the hard-boiled eggs to a powder. Beat this into the drawn butter, then the parsley and other seasoning; lastly, mix in, more lightly, the roes. Strew the bottom of a buttered dish with bread-crumbs, put in the mixture, spread evenly, and cover with very fine crumbs. Stick bits of butter thickly over the top, cover and bake in a quick oven, until bubbling hot. Brown, uncovered, on the upper grating of the oven.
Fish-Balls.
2 cupfuls cold boiled cod—fresh or salted.
1 cupful mashed potato.
½ cup drawn butter, with an egg beaten in.
Season to taste.
Chop the fish when you have freed it of bones and skin. Work in the potato, and moisten with the drawn butter until it is soft enough to mould, and will yet keep in shape. Roll the balls in flour, and fry quickly to a golden-brown in lard, or clean dripping. Take from the fat so soon as they are done; lay in a cullender or sieve and shake gently, to free them from every drop of grease. Turn out for a moment on white paper to absorb any lingering drops, and send up on a hot dish.
A pretty way of serving them is to line the dish with clean, white paper, and edge this with a frill of colored tissue paper—green or pink. This makes ornamental that which is usually considered a homely dish.
Stewed Eels à l’Allemande.
1 cup of boiling water.
1 cup rather weak vinegar.
1 small onion, chopped fine.
A pinch of cayenne pepper.
½ saltspoonful mace.
1 saltspoonful salt.
About 2 pounds of eels.
3 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
Chopped parsley to taste.
Make a liquor in which to boil the eels, of the vinegar, water, onion, pepper, salt and mace. Boil—closely covered—fifteen minutes, when strain and put in the eels, which should be cleaned carefully and cut into pieces less than a finger long. Boil gently nearly an hour. Take them up, drain dry, and put into a sauce made of melted butter and chopped parsley. Set the vessel containing them in another of hot water, and bring eels and sauce to the boiling point, then serve in a deep dish.
Eels Stewed à l’Americain.
3 pounds eels, skinned and cleaned, and all the fat removed from the inside.
1 young onion, chopped fine.
4 table-spoonfuls of butter.
Pepper and salt to taste, with chopped parsley.
Cut the eels in pieces about two inches in length; season, and lay in a saucepan containing the melted butter. Strew the onion and parsley over all, cover the saucepan (or tin pail, if more convenient) closely, and set in a pot of cold water. Bring this gradually to a boil, then cook very gently for an hour and a half, or until the eels are tender. Turn out into a deep dish.
There is no more palatable preparation of eels than this, in the opinion of most of those who have eaten it.
Fricasseed Eels.
3 pounds fresh eels, skinned, cleaned, and cut into pieces about two inches long.
1 small onion, sliced.
Enough butter, or good dripping, to fry the eels.
1 cup good beef or veal gravy, from which the fat has been skimmed. Season with wine, catsup and lemon-juice.
Pepper and salt with minced parsley for seasoning.
A little flour.
Flour the eels and fry in the dripping, or butter, until brown. Take them out and set aside to cool while you fry the sliced onion in the same fat. Drain this, also the eels, from every drop of grease. When the eels are almost cold, lay them in the bottom of a tin pail or farina-kettle, sprinkle the onion, parsley and other seasoning over them. Add to your gravy a little anchovy sauce, or flavorous catsup; the juice of half a lemon, and a glass of brown sherry. Pour over the eels, cover closely, and set in a pot of warm water. Bring to a gentle boil and simmer, after the contents of the inner vessel are heated through, about twenty minutes. Too much, or hard cooking, will spoil them.
Cutlets of Halibut, Cod or Salmon.
3 pounds fish, cut in slices three-quarters of an inch thick, from the body of the fish.
A handful of fine bread-crumbs, with which should be mixed pepper and salt with a little minced parsley.
1 egg beaten light.
Enough butter, lard or dripping to fry the cutlets.
Cut each slice of fish into strips as wide as your two fingers. Dry them with a clean cloth; rub lightly with salt and pepper; dip in the egg, then the bread-crumbs, and fry in enough fat to cover them well. Drain away every drop of fat, and lay upon hot white paper, lining a heated dish.
Cutlets of Cod, Halibut or Salmon à la reine.
Prepare the fish as in the last receipt until after frying it, when have ready the following sauce:
1 cup strong brown gravy—beef or veal.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce or mushroom catsup.
Pepper, salt, a pinch of parsley and a very little minced onion.
1 glass brown sherry and juice of half a lemon.
Thicken with browned flour.
Lay the fried cutlets evenly in a broad saucepan with a top, cover with the gravy and heat slowly all through, but do not let them boil. Take up the cutlets with care, and arrange upon a chafing-dish. Pour the gravy over them.
These are very nice, and well worth the additional trouble it may cost to prepare the sauce.
Baked Cod or Halibut.
A piece of fish from the middle of the back, weighing four, five or six pounds.
A cupful of bread-crumbs, peppered and salted.
2 table-spoonfuls boiled salt pork, finely chopped.
A table-spoonful chopped parsley, sweet marjoram and thyme, with a mere suspicion of minced onion.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce, or Harvey’s, if you prefer it.
½ cupful drawn butter.
Juice of half a lemon.
1 beaten egg.
Lay the fish in very cold salt-and-water for two hours; wipe dry; make deep gashes in both sides at right angles with the back-bone and rub into these, as well as coat it all over with a force-meat made of the crumbs, pork, herbs, onion and seasoning, bound with raw egg. Lay in the baking-pan and pour over it the drawn butter (which should be quite thin), seasoned with the anchovy sauce, lemon-juice, pepper and a pinch of parsley. Bake in a moderate oven nearly an hour,—quite as long if the piece be large, basting frequently lest it should brown too fast. Add a little butter-and-water when the sauce thickens too much. When the fish is done, remove to a hot dish, and strain the gravy over it.
A few capers or chopped green pickles are a pleasant addition to the gravy.
Baked Salmon with Cream Sauce.
A middle cut of salmon.
4 table-spoonfuls of butter melted in hot water.
Butter a sheet of foolscap paper on both sides, and wrap the fish up in it, pinning the ends securely together. Lay in the baking-pan, and pour six or seven spoonfuls of butter-and-water over it. Turn another pan over all, and steam in a moderate oven from three-quarters of an hour to an hour, lifting the cover, from time to time, to baste and assure yourself that the paper is not burning. Meanwhile, have ready in a saucepan a cup of cream, in which you would do well to dissolve a bit of soda a little larger than a pea. This is a wise precaution whenever cream is to be boiled. Heat this in a vessel placed within another of hot water; thicken with a heaping teaspoonful of corn starch, add a tablespoonful of butter, pepper and salt to taste, a liberal pinch of minced parsley, and when the fish is unwrapped and dished, pour half slowly over it, sending the rest to table in a boat. If you have no cream, use milk, and add a beaten egg to the thickening.
Salmon Steaks or Cutlets (fried).
Cut slices from the middle of the fish, an inch thick.
1 table-spoonful butter to each slice, for frying.
Beaten egg and fine cracker crumbs, powdered to dust, and peppered with cayenne.
Wipe the fish dry, and salt slightly. Dip in egg, then in cracker crumbs, fry very quickly in hot butter. Drain off every drop of grease, and serve upon a dish lined with hot, clean paper, fringed at the ends.
Sprinkle green parsley in bunches over it.
The French use the best salad-oil in this receipt, instead of butter.
Salmon Steaks or Cutlets (broiled).
Three or four slices of salmon.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
½ cup drawn butter, thickened with browned flour, and seasoned with tomato catsup.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Rub the steaks with the butter, pepper and salt slightly. Broil upon a gridiron over a very clear fire, turning often, and rubbing each side with butter as it comes uppermost. When nicely browned, lay on a hot dish, and pour the sauce over them.
Salmon Cutlets en Papillote.
Dry and lay in melted butter ten minutes. Dust lightly with cayenne pepper, and wrap securely in well buttered or oiled white paper, stitching down the ends of each cover. Fry in nice dripping or sweet lard. They will be done in ten minutes, unless very thick. Have ready clean, hot papers, fringed at both ends. Clip the threads of the soiled ones when you have drained them free from fat, slip dexterously and quickly, lest they cool in the process, into the fresh covers, give the fringed ends a twist, and send up on a heated dish.
Salmon en papillote is also broiled by experts. If you attempt this, be careful that the paper is so well greased and the cutlets turned so often that it does not scorch. The least taste of burnt paper ruins the flavor of the fish, which it is the object of the cover to preserve.
Salmon in a Mould. (Very good.)
1 can preserved salmon or an equal amount of cold, left from a company dish of roast or boiled.
4 eggs beaten light.
4 table-spoonfuls butter—melted, but not hot.
½ cup fine bread-crumbs.
Season with pepper, salt and minced parsley.
Chop the fish fine, then rub it in a Wedgewood mortar, or in a bowl with the back of a silver spoon, adding the butter until it is a smooth paste. Beat the bread-crumbs into the eggs and season before working all together. Put into a buttered pudding-mould, and boil or steam for an hour.
Sauce for the Above.
1 cupful milk heated to a boil, and thickened with a table-spoonful corn-starch.
The liquor from the canned salmon, or if you have none, double the quantity of butter.
1 great spoonful of butter.
1 raw egg.
1 teaspoonful anchovy, or mushroom, or tomato catsup.
1 pinch of mace and one of cayenne.
Put the egg in last and very carefully, boil one minute to cook it, and when the pudding is turned from the mould, pour over it. Cut in slices at table.
A nice supper-dish.
Stewed Salmon.
1 can preserved fresh salmon, or remains of roast or boiled.
1 cup drawn butter.
2 eggs well beaten.
1 teaspoonful anchovy or Harvey’s sauce.
Cayenne and salt to taste.
2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped fine.
Some capers or minced green pickles.
Stew the salmon in the can liquor, or a very little water, slightly salted, ten minutes. Have ready, in a larger saucepan, the drawn butter thickened with rice-flour or corn-starch. Season and stir in cautiously the beaten raw eggs, then the salmon. Let it come to a gentle boil, add the chopped eggs and pickles and turn into a covered deep dish.
Or—
Add the hard-boiled eggs and capers to the salmon, with a table-spoonful of butter, toss up lightly with a fork, pepper slightly, and heap in the centre of a hot flat dish, then pour the boiling sauce over all.
It is very appetizing served in either way.
Mayonnaise of Salmon.
If you use canned salmon, drain it very dry and pick into coarse flakes with a silver fork. If the remnants of roast or boiled fish, remove all bits of bone, skin and fat, and pick to pieces in the same way.
1 bunch of celery, or 2 heads of lettuce.
For Dressing.
1 cup boiling water.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch.
2 table-spoonfuls best salad-oil.
½ cup vinegar.
1 small teaspoonful black pepper, or half as much cayenne.
1 teaspoonful salt.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
2 raw eggs—yolks only,—beaten light.
2 hard-boiled eggs, yolks only.
2 teaspoonfuls powdered sugar.
Wet the corn-starch with cold water and stir into the boiling water until it thickens well; add half of pepper, salt, sugar, and all the butter. Remove from the fire, and beat in the raw yolks while still scalding hot. Set aside to cool, while you cut the celery or lettuce into small pieces, tearing and bruising as little as may be. Mix this lightly with the fish in a deep bowl. Rub the boiled yolks to a powder, add the salt, sugar and pepper, then the oil, little by little, beating it in with a silver spoon; next, the mustard. When the thick egg sauce is quite cold, whip the other into it with an egg-beater, and when thoroughly incorporated, put in the vinegar. Mix half the dressing through the fish and celery, turn this into a salad-dish, mounding it in the centre, and pour the rest of the dressing over it.
Garnish with rings of boiled white-of-egg or whipped raw whites, heaped regularly on the surface, with a caper on top of each.
Do not be discouraged at the length of this receipt. It is easy and safe. Your taste may suggest some modification of the ingredients, but you will like it, in the main, well enough to try it more than once.
Devilled Salmon.
½ pound smoked salmon, cut into strips half an inch wide and an inch long.
4 table-spoonfuls good beef gravy, seasoned with onion.
1 table-spoonful tomato or walnut catsup.
1 table-spoonful vinegar.
2 table-spoonfuls melted butter or best salad-oil.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.
Cayenne to taste.
Boil the salmon ten minutes in clear water. Have ready in a saucepan the gravy and seasoning, hot and closely covered, but do not let it boil. Lay the salmon for ten minutes more in the melted butter, turning it several times. Then put into the hot gravy, cover and simmer five minutes. Pile the fish upon a hot platter; pour the sauce over it, and serve with split Boston crackers, toasted and buttered.
Smoked Salmon (Broiled).
½ pound smoked salmon, cut into narrow strips.
2 table-spoonfuls butter.
Juice of half a lemon.
Cayenne pepper.
Parboil the salmon ten minutes; lay in cold water for the same length of time; wipe dry, and broil over a clear fire. Butter while hot, season with cayenne and lemon-juice, pile in a “log-cabin” square upon a hot plate, and send up with dry toast.
Salt Cod an maître d’hôtel.
About a pound of cod which has been soaked over night, then boiled, picked into fine flakes.
1 cup milk.
2 table-spoonfuls butter.
Bunch of sweet herbs.
Juice of half a lemon.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch.
Pepper to taste.
Heat the milk to boiling, stir in the butter, then the corn-starch; stir until it thickens, when add the fish; pepper and cook slowly fifteen minutes. Turn out upon a dish, strew thickly with chopped green herbs—chiefly parsley; squeeze the lemon-juice over all and serve.
Mashed potato is an improvement to this dish.
Salt Cod with Egg Sauce.
1 pound salt cod, previously soaked, then boiled and allowed to cool, picked or chopped fine.
1 small cup milk or cream.
1 teaspoonful corn-starch or flour.
2 eggs beaten light.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
A little chopped parsley.
Half as much mashed potato as you have fish.
Pepper to taste.
Heat the milk, thicken with the corn starch; then the potato, rubbed very fine; next the butter, the eggs and parsley, lastly the fish. Stir and toss until smoking hot all through, when pour into a deep dish.
Or,
Make a sauce of all the ingredients except the fish and potato. Mix these well together, with a little melted butter. Heat in a saucepan, stirring all the while; heap in the centre of a dish, and pour the sauce over all.
Salt Cod with Cheese.
1 pound boiled codfish, chopped fine.
1 cup drawn butter.
Pepper and parsley.
2 table-spoonfuls grated cheese.
Bread-crumbs.
Heat the butter to boiling, season and stir in the fish, then the cheese; put into a baking-dish; strew fine bread-crumbs on the top, and brown in the oven.
Salt Cod Scalloped.
Boiled cold cod, minced fine.
1 cup oyster liquor.
1 table-spoonful rice-flour or corn-starch.
3 table-spoonfuls butter.
Chopped parsley and pepper.
3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped fine.
1 cup fine, dry bread-crumbs.
Boil the oyster liquor, thicken and stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter with seasoning. Let it cool. Put a handful of bread-crumbs on the bottom of a buttered baking-dish, cover these with the oyster sauce, next comes a layer of fish; one of chopped egg; then more sauce, and so on, leaving out the bread-crumbs until the dish is full, when put a thick layer, with bits of butter set closely in it. Bake covered until hot through, then brown.
Fricasseed Lobster.
Meat of a good-sized lobster, boiled.
1 cup rich veal, or chicken broth—quite thick.
½ cup cream.
Juice of half a lemon.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Cut the lobster-meat in pieces half an inch square; put with the gravy, pepper and salt, into a saucepan. Cover and stew gently for five minutes. Add the cream, and just as it is on the point of boiling, stir in the butter. When this is melted, take the saucepan from the fire, and stir in, very quickly, the lemon-juice.
Serve in a covered dish.
Boston crackers, split, delicately toasted, and buttered while hot, are a nice accompaniment to this fricassee.
Canned lobster may be used if you cannot procure fresh.
Lobster Rissoles.
1 large lobster—boiled.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
Yolks of 3 eggs.
Handful of bread-crumbs.
1 table-spoonful of anchovy sauce.
Cayenne, salt, and chopped parsley to liking.
Pick the meat from the boiled lobster, and pound it in a Wedgewood mortar with half the coral, seasoning with salt and cayenne pepper. When you have rubbed it to a smooth paste with the butter, add a table-spoonful of anchovy sauce and the yolk of an egg, well beaten. Flour your hands well and make the mixture into egg-shaped balls. Roll these in beaten egg, then in bread-crumbs, and fry to a light brown in sweet lard, dripping, or butter.
For the Sauce.
The coral of the lobster rubbed smooth.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
4 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
1 table-spoonful of cream.
Have ready in a saucepan 4 table-spoonfuls of melted butter; the remainder of the coral of the lobster pounded fine, and stirred in carefully, and a teaspoonful of anchovy sauce. Let this heat almost to boiling; add the cream, and pour hot over the rissoles when you have arranged these upon a heated dish.
Garnish with parsley or cresses.
Lobster Cutlets
Are made precisely as is the paste for rissoles, except that enough flour is added to it to enable you to roll it out into a sheet about as thick as your finger. Cut this into strips about three inches in length and one in width. Fry these quickly and drain dry before arranging them in the dish.
Pour the sauce over them. If properly made and fried, they are light and palatable.
Lobster Croquettes.
1 fine lobster, well boiled, or a can of lobster.
2 eggs, well beaten.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter, melted, but not hot.
½ cup bread-crumbs.
Season with salt and cayenne pepper.
Pound the lobster-meat, coral and all, in a Wedgewood mortar. Mix with this the bread-crumbs, then the seasoning and butter. Bind with the yolk of one egg. Flour your hands and make into oblong croquettes. Dip in beaten egg, then in bread-crumbs, and fry quickly to a light-brown in sweet lard or butter. Drain off fat, by laying upon a hot, clean paper, before dishing them.
Make a border of parsley close about them when you have piled them tastefully in the dish.
Lobster Pudding.
1 large lobster well boiled, or a can of preserved lobster.
½ cup fine bread-crumbs.
½ cup cream or rich milk.
Cayenne pepper and salt.
1 teaspoonful of Worcestershire or Harvey’s sauce.
¼ pound fat, salt pork, or corned ham, cut into very thin slices.
3 eggs.
Pound the meat and coral to a paste. Mix into this two eggs well beaten, the seasoning, the bread-crumbs, and one table-spoonful of cream. Stir all together until light. Line the pudding-mould with the sliced ham. Pour the mixture into this and fit on the top. Set into a pot or pan of boiling water, and boil steadily for one hour.
Sauce for Pudding.
½ cup drawn butter.
A little chopped parsley.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
Heat almost to boiling; stir in a beaten egg, and so soon as this begins to thicken, take from the fire.
Turn the pudding out carefully upon a hot dish, and pour the sauce over it. Cut with a sharp thin knife.
Send around lemon cut into eighths, to be squeezed over each slice, should the guests wish to do so.
Curried Lobster.
1 large lobster, boiled.
1 large cup of strong veal or chicken broth.
1 shallot.
1 great spoonful of butter.
1 great spoonful chopped thyme and parsley.
Juice of 1 lemon.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
1 table-spoonful curry-powder.
Pick the meat very fine and set aside in a cool place. Mince the onion, and put it with the chopped herbs, the butter and a table-spoonful of hot water, into a small covered saucepan. Set this over the fire until it begins to simmer, then add the broth. Boil all together for five minutes, strain as for soup, stir in the curry powder and corn-starch, and stew gently ten minutes longer, stirring often. Season as directed, and add the picked lobster. Let the saucepan stand in a pan of boiling water ten minutes, but do not let the contents of the inner vessel boil. Pour into a deep dish.
Send around wafery slices of toast buttered while hot, and pieces of lemon to be added if necessary.
Devilled Lobster.
1 lobster, well boiled.
3 table-spoonfuls butter.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
1 wine glass of vinegar.
Cayenne pepper and salt.
2 hard-boiled eggs.
Pick the meat carefully from the shell, breaking it as little as may be. Rub the coral to a smooth paste with the back of a silver spoon. Chop the meat fine. Stir into this the butter, melted, but not hot, the yolks of the eggs, rubbed smooth with the coral, the pepper, mustard and salt, and put all together in a saucepan over the fire. Stir until it is smoking hot, then turn into the shell, which should be washed and heated.
Stewed Lobster.
1 large lobster, well boiled.
1 cup good gravy—veal is best.
1 blade of mace.
2 table-spoonfuls of melted butter.
Juice of half a lemon.
Cayenne and salt to liking.
1 glass sherry.
1 teaspoonful chopped parsley.
Cut the meat of the lobster into pieces an inch long and half as wide, keeping the coral until the last. Put the meat, with the broth and seasoning, into a saucepan and heat gently, stirring frequently until it is near boiling. Then add the coral and butter (which should previously be well rubbed together) and the chopped parsley. When the mixture again nears the boiling point, add the wine and lemon-juice and turn into a deep dish.
Scalloped Lobster (No. 1).
1 boiled lobster.
4 table-spoonfuls of cream.
2 eggs well beaten.
½ cup bread-crumbs.
2 tablespoonfuls butter.
1 tea-spoonful anchovy sauce.
Season to taste with cayenne, salt and nutmeg.
Juice of half a lemon.
Rub the meat of the lobster, including the coral, a little at a time, in a Wedgewood mortar with the butter, until it is a soft paste. Put this into a saucepan with the seasoning, and heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Remove from the fire, and add the cream and lemon-juice, stirring in well. Fill the lobster shell with this mixture. Strew bread-crumbs over the top, and set on the upper grate of a quick oven until the crumbs begin to brown.
Send to table in the shell, laid upon a hot dish.
You can scallop crab in the same manner.
Scalloped Lobster (No. 2).
1 lobster, well boiled.
3 table-spoonfuls of butter.
1 teaspoonful of anchovy sauce.
½ cup of bread-crumbs.
½ cup of cream.
2 eggs well beaten.
Season with cayenne pepper and salt.
Cut the lobster carefully into halves with a sharp knife. Pick out the meat carefully, and set aside while you prepare the sauce. This is done by rubbing the coral and the soft green substance, known as the “pith,” together in a mortar or bowl, adding, a little at a time, a table-spoonful of butter. Put this on the fire in a covered saucepan, and stir until it is smoking hot. Then, beat in the anchovy sauce, pepper and salt before adding the cream. Heat quickly to a boil, lest the cream should curdle, put in the picked meat, and again stir up well from the sides and bottom until very hot. The eggs, whipped to a froth, should now go in. Remove the saucepan from the fire so soon as this is done.
Have the upper and lower halves of the shell ready buttered, strew bread-crumbs thickly in the bottom of each, moisten these with cream, and pour in the lobster mixture while still very hot. Put another layer of bread-crumbs, well moistened with the remainder of the cream, on the top. Stick bits of butter all over it, and brown on the upper grating of a hot oven.
In either of these preparations of scalloped lobster, should the canned lobster be used, or should you chance to break the shell in getting out the meat, you may bake the mixture prepared, as directed, in a pudding-dish or small paté pans.
Crabs
Are so near of kin to the lobster family that the same receipts may easily be used for both. Only, bear in mind that the lesser and tougher shell-fish needs more boiling than does the aristocratic lobster. If underdone, crabs are very unwholesome. Also, in consideration of the crab’s deficiency in the matter of the coral which lends lusciousness and color to lobster salads and stews, use more butter and cream in “getting him up” for the table.
Cayenne pepper is regarded by many as necessary in dishes of lobster or crab, because of its supposed efficacy in preventing the evil effects which might otherwise follow indulgence in these delicacies.
Soft Crabs.
For a receipt for preparing these, please see “Common Sense in the Household, No. 1,” page 71.
Turtle Fricassee.
3 pounds turtle steak.
1 large cup strong veal gravy.
4 hard-boiled eggs—the yolks only.
1 teaspoonful Harvey’s sauce.
Juice of half a lemon.
2 dozen mushrooms.
1 small onion, minced fine.
1 bunch sweet herbs, minced.
1 glass wine, and butter for frying.
Browned flour for thickening, with cayenne and salt.
Cut the steak in strips as wide and as long as three of your fingers; fry brown (when you have floured them) in butter. Take up; drain off the grease; put with the gravy, which should be ready heated, into a tin vessel with a close cover and set in a pot of hot water. It must not boil until you have put in the rest of the ingredients. Slice the onion and mushrooms, and fry in the same butter; add with the herbs and other seasoning to the meat in the pail, or inner saucepan. Cover and set to stew gently. To the butter left in the frying-pan, add three spoonfuls of browned flour (large ones) and stir to a smooth unctuous paste, without setting it on the range. Add the lemon-juice to this, and set aside until the turtle has simmered half an hour in the broth. Take up the meat, and arrange upon a covered hot-water dish; transfer the gravy to a saucepan, and boil hard five minutes uncovered. Put in the brown flour paste; stir up until it thickens well; add the wine and yolks of eggs, each cut in three pieces, and pour over the turtle.
Panned Oysters.
1 quart of oysters.
Rounds of thin toast, delicately browned.
Butter, salt and pepper.
Have ready several small pans of block tin, with upright sides. The ordinary “patty-pan” will do, if you can get nothing better, but it is well, if you are fond of oysters cooked in this way, to have the neat little tins made, at a moderate price, at a tinsmith’s. Cut stale bread in thin slices, then round—removing all the crust—of a size that will just fit in the bottoms of your pans. Toast these quickly to a light-brown, butter and lay within your tins. Wet with a great spoonful of oyster liquid, then, with a silver fork, arrange upon the toast as many oysters as the pans will hold without heaping them up. Dust with pepper and salt, put a bit of butter on top and set the pans, when all are full, upon the floor of a quick oven. Cover with an inverted baking-pan to keep in steam and flavor, and cook until the oysters “ruffle.” Eight minutes in a brisk oven, should be enough. Send very hot to the table in the tins in which they were roasted.
Next to roasting in the shell, this mode of cooking oysters best preserves the native flavor of the bivalves.
Fricasseed Oysters.
1 pint good broth—veal or chicken—well strained.
1 slice of ham—corned is better than smoked.
3 pints oysters.
1 small onion.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
½ cup of milk.
1 table-spoonful of corn-starch.
1 egg beaten light.
A little chopped parsley and sweet marjoram.
Pepper to taste and juice of a lemon.
If the ham be raw, soak in boiling water for half an hour before cutting it into very small slices, and putting it into the saucepan with the broth, the oyster liquor, the onion minced very fine, the herbs and pepper. Let these simmer for fifteen minutes, and boil fast for five, then skim and put in the oysters. Boil up once briskly, keeping the contents of the saucepan well stirred. Have ready the corn-starch, rubbed smoothly into the milk. Stir this in and heat carefully, using the spoon constantly until it boils and begins to thicken, when the butter should go in. So soon as this is melted take out the oysters with a skimmer; put into a hot covered dish, heat the broth again to a boil, remove the saucepan from the fire, and stir in cautiously the beaten egg. A better way is to cook the latter gradually by beating in with it a few tablespoonfuls of the scalding liquor, before putting the egg into the saucepan.
Turn the gravy over the oysters, and serve at once. Squeeze in the lemon-juice after the tureen is on the table, as it is apt to curdle the mixture if left to stand.
Send around cream crackers, and green pickles or olives with this savory dish.
Oysters Boiled in the Shell.
Large shell-oysters, washed very clean and scraped, but not opened.
Pot of boiling water over a hot fire.
Sauce of melted butter with chopped or powdered parsley.
A lemon, cut in half.
Put the oysters, one by one, quickly and carefully into the water, which must be kept at a hard boil all the time. In five minutes, turn off every drop of the water by inverting the pot over a cullender, dry the shells rapidly with a soft cloth and send to table upon a hot dish. Squeeze a few drops of lemon-juice upon each oyster, and put a little hot melted butter with pepper over it before eating it from the shell.
The epicurean oyster-lover may consider boiled oysters insipid, but they are liked by many.
Scalloped Oysters (No. 1).
Large, fine shell-oysters.
Butter.
Fine bread-crumbs, or rolled cracker.
Minced parsley, pepper and salt.
Lemon-juice.
Open the shells, setting aside for use the deepest ones. Have ready some melted butter, not hot, seasoned with minced parsley and pepper. Roll each oyster in this, letting it drip as little as may be, and lay in the shells, which should be arranged in a baking-pan. Add to each a little lemon-juice, sift bread-crumbs over it, and bake in a quick oven until done.
Serve in the shells.
Scalloped Oysters (No. 2).
1 quart of oysters.
1 teacupful very dry bread-crumbs, or pounded cracker.
2 great spoonfuls butter.
½ cup of milk, or cream, if you can get it.
Pepper to taste.
A little salt.
Cover the bottom of a baking-dish (well buttered) with a layer of crumbs, and wet these with the cream, put on spoonful by spoonful. Pepper and salt, and strew with minute bits of butter. Next, put in the oysters, with a little of their liquor. Pepper them, stick bits of butter in among them, and cover with dry crumbs until the oysters are entirely hidden. More pieces of butter, very small, and arranged thickly on top. Set in the oven, invert a plate over it to keep in the flavor, and bake until the juice bubbles up to the top. Remove the cover, and brown on the upper grating for two or three minutes—certainly not longer.
Send to table in the bake-dish.
This is a good intermediate course between fish and meat, and is always popular.
Broiled Oysters.
1 quart of the finest, firmest oysters you can procure.
½ cup very dry bread-crumbs, or pounded crackers, sifted almost as fine as flour.
Pepper to taste.
½ cup melted butter.
Dry the oysters by laying them on a clean cloth and covering them with another. Dip each in the melted butter, which should be peppered, roll over and over in the cracker-crumbs, and broil upon one of the wire gridirons, made for this purpose, over a clear fire. These wire “broilers” hold the oysters firmly, and can be safely turned when one side is done. Five or six minutes should cook them. Butter and pepper a hot dish, lay in the oysters, and serve immediately.
Devilled Oysters.
1 quart fine oysters.
Cayenne pepper.
Lemon-juice.
Some melted butter.
1 egg, beaten light.
½ cup rolled cracker.
Wipe the oysters dry, and lay in a flat dish. Cover with a mixture of melted butter, cayenne pepper (or pepper-sauce), and lemon-juice. Let them lie in this for ten minutes, turning them frequently; roll in the crumbs, then in the beaten egg, again in the crumbs, and fry in mixed lard and butter, made very hot before the oysters are dropped in.
Oysters in Batter.
1 quart of oysters.
2 eggs, whipped light.
1 cup of milk.
Flour to make a good batter.
Pepper and salt.
Dry the oysters with a soft cloth, dip in the batter twice, turning each one dexterously, that it may be thickly coated, and fry in a mixture of butter and lard.
Stewed Oysters.
1 quart of oysters.
1 cup of milk.
Salt very slightly, and pepper to taste.
1 great spoonful butter.
Drain the liquor from the oysters into a saucepan and heat to a boil. At the same time, put on the milk to heat in another vessel set within a pot or pan of boiling water. When the liquor in the saucepan boils up, put in the oysters and stew until they begin to ruffle or crimp at the edges. Stir in the butter, and when this is quite dissolved, turn the stew into a tureen. Add the milk immediately (which should be boiling hot), cover closely, and send to table. Send around pickles, or olives, and crackers with them. There is no danger, when oysters are stewed in this way, of the milk curdling.
Oyster Patés.
1 quart of oysters, minced fine with a sharp knife, with a thin blade,—not a “chopper.”
1 great spoonful butter “drawn” in a cupful of milk, or cream, if you can get it, and thicken with a teaspoonful of corn-starch or rice-flour, previously wet up with cold milk.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Drain the liquor from the oysters, and chop them as directed. When the milk has been boiled and thickened, and the butter well incorporated with it, stir in the minced oysters, and stew about five minutes, stirring all the while. Have ready some shapes of nice pastry, baked, and fill with the mixture. Set in the oven about two minutes to heat them well, and send to table.
Or,
You can heat the chopped oysters in a very little of their own liquor before adding to the thickened milk. Unless you are sure that the latter is quite fresh, this is a prudent precaution.
Cream Oyster Pie.
Line a pie-plate with good puff paste; fill it with slices of stale bread, laid evenly within it; butter that part of the crust lining the rim of the dish, and cover with a top crust. Bake quickly in a brisk oven, and while still hot, dexterously and carefully lift the upper crust. The buttered rim will cause it to separate easily from the lower. Have ready a mixture of minced oysters and thickened cream, prepared according to the foregoing receipt, and having taken out the stale bread (put there to keep the top crust in shape), fill the pie with the oyster cream. Replace the cover, set in the oven for two minutes, or until hot, and serve. This is a nice luncheon dish, and not amiss for supper.