Home › The Principles of Cookery › CRAYFISH, ESCALOPES OF (a la Cardinal)
CRAYFISH, ESCALOPES OF (a la Cardinal)
Break the crayfish, remove the meat, and mince small. Heat up in a stewpan with one ounce of bread-crumbs, a little butter, and enough white sauce to moisten; when thoroughly hot add two yolks of eggs, season to taste, and stir over the fire until the mixture binds. Spread on a plate and set to cool. Shape it into six or eight oval croquettes with the ends pointed and the centre of each made hollow on one side; egg and bread-crumb them carefully, and fry to a golden colour in hot fat. Take up, drain, and dish up in a row on a hot dish; place a small trimmed poached egg in the centre of each croquette. Cover over carefully with well-reduced cardinal sauce; insert a prawn at each end of the croquettes. Place a star or half-moon of truffle or mushroom in the centre of each, and serve hot. Probable cost, 2s.
A late-Victorian composed entrée: a bound crayfish croquette used as a plinth for a poached egg and a red shellfish sauce. Most of the work is in the timing, since three hot components have to meet on the dish at once.
- Quantity of crayfishThe original names no weight. For six to eight croquettes reckon on 1.5-2 lb of whole crayfish in the shell, which yields only around 4-6 oz of picked tail and claw meat. Do not discard the shells; they are the basis of the cardinal sauce.
- The hinge: the mixture must be cold and firmEverything depends on the bound mixture setting hard enough to shape and hollow. Stir over gentle heat only until the egg yolks thicken it into a mass that leaves the side of the pan, then spread it no more than an inch thick and chill for at least two hours, preferably overnight. A warm or slack mixture will burst in the fat.
- Cardinal sauceNot given here because Cassell's carries it elsewhere. It is a fish velouty or bchamel finished with reduced crayfish or lobster stock, cream, a knob of shellfish butter pounded from the roasted shells, and cayenne, which is what gives the red "cardinal" colour. "Well-reduced" means thick enough to coat and stay put on a croquette rather than pool on the dish.
- "Escalopes" and "croquettes"The title's escalope appears to refer to the flattened oval shape rather than to a slice of meat. The hollow pressed into one side is a seat for the poached egg, so make it a shallow depression rather than a cup.
- FryingDeep fat at 350-375F, in batches, one to two minutes until golden. Egg and crumb them twice if the mixture is at all soft, and chill again after crumbing.
- The poached eggs"Small trimmed" means hen's eggs poached soft and pared of their ragged whites with scissors. Quail eggs, poached for about a minute, sit far better on a croquette of this size and are easier to keep neat. Poach them in advance, hold in cold water, and reheat for thirty seconds in hot salted water as you dish up.
- Truffle and mushroom garnishThe star or half-moon is cut from a slice of cooked truffle or a blanched mushroom cap with a small aspic cutter. A thin round of black truffle, or nothing at all, does no harm to the eating.
- PrawnsCooked, shelled but with the tail fan left on, pressed in at each end so they stand up. Whole crayfish tails serve as well and keep the dish consistent.
- Yield and costSix to eight croquettes, an entre for four or a first course for six to eight. The "probable cost, 2s." is a shilling-era guide price for the whole dish and has no modern equivalent.
Cardinal sauce takes its name from the colour of a cardinal's robes, the red coming from shellfish butter and cayenne rather than from any pigment; the term is generally said to have been well established in French professional kitchens by the mid-nineteenth century and passed into English cookery books along with the rest of the classical garnish vocabulary. Crayfish ( y write u) were a standard luxury of that repertoire, valued as much for the scarlet shells that flavoured and tinted the sauce as for the small quantity of meat inside. Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery shows the pattern such books favoured: a cheap bulk of breadcrumbs and sauce carrying an expensive flavour, then dressed up with poached eggs, truffle cutouts and standing prawns so that the finished dish reads as far grander than its two shillings.