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Crab, Dressed
Take a fine heavy crab, break off the claws and feelers, remove all the flesh from them and the body, picking it carefully from the bony centre portion. There is the soft dark flesh and the white; the latter is separated into shreds with a fork. Wash the empty shell, rub it with a little warmed butter to polish it. Chip off the under portion of the shell to make a neat edge. Mix the soft, dark substance with oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and the crumbs. Toss the white meat in oil, pepper, and vinegar. Fill the shell alternately with the two mixtures, piling them rather high in the centre. Decorate in lines with the parsley, chopped white of egg, and the powdered yolk. Probable cost, 1s. 6d.
A cold dressed crab, assembled in its own cleaned shell. The recipe assumes several things a modern cook may not: that the crab arrives already boiled, that the inedible parts have been discarded, and that the quantities of oil, vinegar and crumbs are left to judgement.
- Start with a cooked crabNothing here cooks the crab. The book assumes a boiled one, bought from the fishmonger or boiled at home that morning. Buy a whole cooked crab, or boil a live one yourself; never dress a crab that died before cooking.
- What to throw awayThe single instruction the text omits. Discard the feathery grey gills (the "dead man's fingers") attached to the body, the stomach sac behind the mouth, and any green-grey membrane. Only the brown meat from the shell and the white meat from body and claws are eaten.
- Size and yield"A fine heavy crab" means one that feels full rather than watery; the text gives no weight. A crab of roughly 2 to 2 1/2 lb will yield somewhere around 8 to 10 oz of picked meat, the larger share of it white. That is a light lunch for two, or a starter for four.
- Chipping the shellThe underside of a crab shell has a faint ridged line running around it. Tap along it with the back of a heavy knife or the handle of a spoon and the surplus breaks away cleanly, leaving an even oval.
- The crumbsFresh soft white breadcrumbs, not dried or golden crumbs. They are there to stiffen the brown meat, which is loose and oily on its own; start with about 2 tablespoons to the brown meat of one crab and add more only if it will not hold a ridge.
- Oil and vinegarNo quantities appear in the method as printed here. Roughly a tablespoon of oil to a teaspoon of vinegar for each mixture is a fair starting point; lemon juice is now more usual than vinegar with white crab meat.
- The egg garnishOne hard-boiled egg, whites chopped fine and yolks pushed through a sieve to make the "powdered" crumb. Lay it in bands with chopped parsley across the piled meat, working from the centre out.
- ServingChill for an hour before serving and eat the same day. Brown bread and butter is the standing accompaniment. The book gives the probable cost as 1s. 6d.
Dressed crab belongs to the British cold table rather than to the kitchen range: a supper dish, a luncheon dish, and by repute a staple of seaside boarding houses on coasts where crab was landed in quantity and sold cheap. The whole art lies in picking the meat clean and returning it to the shell looking better than it did coming out. The division of brown from white meat, and the binding of the brown with crumbs, is the traditional treatment and is still met with in fishmongers' shops today; the oil-and-vinegar dressing is the more period touch, later largely displaced by mayonnaise and lemon. The elaborate garnish of sieved yolk, chopped white and parsley in ruled lines is characteristic of late Victorian and Edwardian cold service, where a dish was expected to arrive at table looking composed.