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LOBSTER (a la Creme)
Pick the meat from a large freshly-boiled cock lobster, mince it finely, and put it into a saucepan with half a tea-spoonful of salt, a teaspoonful of white pepper, the eighth of a nutmeg, grated, two tea-spoonfuls of vinegar, and one of light wine. When quite hot, put with it two ounces of fresh butter, lightly rolled in flour, and a quarter of a pint of thick cream. Simmer gently for ten minutes, stirring all the time, and when thoroughly heated put the mixture into the shell of the lobster, place it on a neatly-folded napkin, and garnish with parsley. Probable cost of lobster, 2s. to 3s. Sufficient for six or eight persons.
A Victorian creamed lobster, served back in the shell. The hinge is heat: the lobster is already cooked, so the ten-minute simmer is about thickening the sauce, not cooking the meat, and the meat will toughen if you take it literally.
- Cut the simmering timeTen minutes of stirring turns boiled lobster fibrous and squeaky. Build the sauce first, then fold the minced meat in and hold it just below a simmer for two or three minutes until hot through.
- Cock lobsterThe male. Period cookery held that the cock had firmer, whiter flesh and heavier claws, while the hen carried the coral (roe), used for colouring sauces and butters. Either sex works; a 1.5-2 lb lobster gives roughly 6-8 oz of picked meat.
- Quarter of a pint of creamFive imperial fluid ounces, a little over half a US cup. "Thick cream" means heavy or double cream, above 36% fat, which will reduce without splitting.
- Butter rolled in flourThe butter is worked or dusted with flour so the flour disperses as the butter melts. The recipe's "lightly rolled" means a light coating, not a stiff paste; add it in small pieces so it disperses rather than lumping.
- Go easy on the pepperA full teaspoon of ground white pepper against a pound-odd of lobster will dominate everything; start with a quarter teaspoon and taste.
- Light wineA dry white table wine, nothing sweet or fortified. Two teaspoons of vinegar plus one of wine is a very small quantity of acid, so use a wine you would drink.
- NutmegAn eighth of a whole nutmeg is a generous pinch, about a quarter teaspoon freshly grated. Grate it at the end; pre-ground nutmeg loses most of its point.
- Serving and yield"Six to eight persons" assumes this is one dish among several at a Victorian dinner. As a first course or a supper on toast it serves four; as a main course, two. Rinse and dry the emptied shell before filling it, and warm it briefly so the sauce does not chill on contact.
In Cassell's, lobster appears in dozens of guises, and the phrase " a la cr ome" simply signals a white cream sauce rather than any particular French dish. The lobster served in its own shell on a folded napkin, garnished with parsley, was a standard Victorian presentation for a made dish that had to look like the whole creature it came from. The quoted cost of two to three shillings is telling: lobster was not cheap, but it was an everyday market fish in Britain, landed in quantity along the Scottish, Norfolk and Cornish coasts and sent to London by rail, and it turns up in middle-class household cookery far more often than its modern price would suggest. The instruction to use a freshly-boiled lobster is the period's substitute for refrigeration; cooked shellfish left standing was a well-known cause of illness.