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Lobsters
Some lobsters require longer boiling than others; this depends upon their size. Pick the meat from the shell, cut into pieces of equal size, put them into the spider with the liquor which comes out of the shell, two tablespoonfuls of celery vinegar, a little cayenne pepper, a pinch of sugar, and two tablespoonfuls of butter; dredge with flour, cover, and let it stew ten minutes; stir it, when cooked, and serve.
A short lobster stew that assumes you have already boiled and picked the lobster. The original gives no quantities for the lobster itself, so work from one 1½-lb lobster per two servings.
- The spiderA spider was a long-handled cast-iron skillet, originally with legs to stand over coals. Any heavy skillet or wide saucepan with a lid does the job.
- Boiling the lobster firstThe recipe's opening line is its only guidance on cooking the shellfish: roughly 8 minutes for a 1-lb lobster and 10-12 minutes for a 1½-lb, counted from the return to a boil in heavily salted water. The tail meat should be opaque throughout.
- The liquor mattersSave every drop that runs out of the shell and body cavity when you pick the meat. It is the only liquid in the pan besides the vinegar and butter, and it carries most of the flavour.
- Celery vinegarA Victorian pantry staple: white wine or cider vinegar steeped with celery seed or chopped celery leaf. Substitute 2 tablespoons cider vinegar with a scant ¼ teaspoon crushed celery seed, or plain vinegar plus a little chopped celery leaf.
- Ten minutes is too longThe lobster is already cooked; a further ten minutes of stewing turns it fibrous. Bring the butter, liquor and vinegar to a simmer with the flour, then add the meat and heat through for two to three minutes only.
- Dredge with flourRoughly a tablespoon, sifted over the pan to thicken the small amount of liquid into a light sauce. Stir it into the melted butter before the meat goes in or it will sit in lumps.
- SeasoningCayenne, sugar and vinegar are the whole balance here, and there is no salt listed. Taste at the end; boiled lobster is salty from its cooking water, so add salt last if at all.
- ServingOne 1 u00bd-lb lobster treated this way serves two as a light course. The recipe gives no accompaniment; toast points, plain boiled rice or a puff-pastry shell all suit it.
Stewed lobster in butter with a sharp vinegar and cayenne belongs to a long Anglo-American line of "devilled" and "potted" shellfish dishes, in which the cook's aim was to season richly rather than to stretch the meat. Lobster was cheap and abundant along the American Northeast coast for much of the nineteenth century, landed in enough volume to be everyday food and to supply a canning trade, and its modern standing as a luxury developed as stocks thinned and rail and refrigeration carried it inland. Flavoured vinegars like the celery vinegar called for here appear regularly in home cookery books of the period, put up in summer and drawn on later for exactly this sort of quick made dish.