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Canapes
Take slices of the crumb of bread about half an inch thick, and stamp them out in rounds, ovals, or diamonds, then fry them in boiling oil or butter till they are lightly browned. These form the foundation of the canapes. They may be seasoned and garnished with anchovy, shrimp, or lobster paste, toasted cheese, hard-boiled eggs, cucumbers, beetroot, parsley, salad, cresses, celery, gherkins, prawns, crayfish, or salmon. A combination of two or three things gives them a handsomer appearance. They should be dished on a napkin and garnished with parsley, etc. Time to fry, ten minutes.
A method rather than a fixed recipe: fried bread bases with cold savoury toppings. Only the frying needs real attention.
- Ten minutes is far too longHalf-inch bread rounds in hot fat colour in about 60 to 90 seconds a side. Whatever the original ten minutes was meant to cover, in a modern skillet the croutes will be black and greasy well before that.
- "Boiling oil or butter"Boiling here just means fat hot enough to sizzle briskly; the recipe gives no temperature. Butter alone will brown and burn at frying heat, so use clarified butter, or half butter and half neutral oil, if you want the flavour.
- Crumb of breadThe soft interior of a close-textured white loaf, crusts cut away. A day-old loaf stamps and fries much more cleanly than fresh; open, airy modern sandwich bread soaks up fat and collapses.
- The pastesAnchovy, shrimp and lobster paste were widely sold in small pots by grocers of the period. Anchovy paste is still stocked; for the others, pound the cooked shellfish with softened butter, lemon and cayenne to a spreadable paste.
- Beetroot means cookedIn British recipes of this period beetroot for garnishing is generally boiled and peeled (or pickled), not raw. Buy it ready-cooked and drained, and pat it dry so it does not bleed into the other garnishes.
- Assemble lateThe bases soften fairly quickly once topped. Fry and drain them well ahead, keep them uncovered at room temperature, and spread and garnish just before they go to the table.
- Yield and quantityThe recipe gives no yield. As a rough guide, a large loaf will stamp out a few dozen bases, and two or three per person is generous alongside other food; reckon a scant teaspoon of paste on each.
- The napkinServing on a folded napkin was standard for fried dishes, and it will also absorb residual fat. A paper liner does the same job on a modern platter.
Canape is the French word for a couch or sofa, and is generally explained as being borrowed into cookery for the piece of bread on which something reclines; the same root also gives English "canopy". The entry is a template rather than a fixed dish, which is why the list runs from anchovy paste to cresses to crayfish. Fried and toasted bread bases had long been a standard vehicle for savouries in British kitchens, served either as the small hot course at the end of a formal dinner or as part of the cold buffet at a ball supper. The potted fish pastes named here belong to a specific commercial moment: by the late nineteenth century Britain had a substantial trade in potted shrimp, anchovy and lobster pastes sold in stoneware and glass jars, which made a dish like this practical for a household with no time to pound its own.