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Lobster, Creamed
Boil down the shell and legs of a large lobster in a pint of water, and reduce the liquor to half that quantity. Put it in a saucepan with the scraggy part of the lobster, and bring it to the boil, then add a gill of cream, the firm flesh cut into dice, seasoning, and sufficient white roux to make the mixture thick. Take it from the fire, put in a tea-spoonful of lemon-juice, salt, cayenne, a little anchovy essence, and some of the coral. Have ready on a hot dish a border of mashed potatoes or rice, turn the fish into the centre, sprinkle the rest of the coral over the border, and garnish the outer edge with shrimps or prawns.
A Victorian lobster newburg in all but name, built on a quick shell stock rather than a plain béchamel. The whole point is the stock, so do not skip it.
- The hinge: the lobster is already cookedThe diced firm flesh goes in only to warm through. Once the cream and roux are in, keep the pan below a simmer for two or three minutes; a hard boil turns lobster meat fibrous and tightens it into rubber.
- A gillIn a British book of this date, a gill is a quarter of an imperial pint, about 5 fl oz or a scant ⅔ US cup. The pint of water reduced by half gives roughly 10 fl oz of shell stock.
- White roux, unquantifiedEqual weights butter and flour cooked together without colouring. For the volume of liquid here, start with about 1 oz of each, whisk in gradually, and stop when the sauce coats a spoon — the stock's strength varies with how hard you reduced it.
- The scraggy partThe soft body meat from the head cavity and the shreds clinging to the joints, as distinct from the tail and claw meat cut into dice. It dissolves into the stock and carries most of the flavour.
- CoralThe dark green roe of a hen lobster, which turns coral-red when cooked. Male lobsters have none, so a cooked lobster bought over the counter may yield none at all; treat it as optional garnish. The greenish tomalley is not the same thing and will muddy the colour.
- Anchovy essenceA thin bottled anchovy extract, still made but not universally stocked. A scant teaspoon of anchovy paste or two mashed fillets does the same job; it is there for savour, not fish flavour, so keep the hand light.
- Building the shell stockCrack the shells and legs first and cover with the pint of water. The recipe directs you to boil it down to half its quantity; strain the liquor before using it. A gentler simmer to begin with, then reduction, gives a clearer stock.
- Yield and servingOne large lobster should feed two as a main course or four as a first course. The recipe wants the potato or rice border already in place on a hot dish before the fish goes into the centre, so pipe or spoon it into a ring in advance.
Cassell's gives the dish a structure entirely of its period: a stock drawn from the shells, thickened with white roux, enriched with cream and sharpened with lemon, cayenne and anchovy. The same formula appears across late nineteenth-century English cookery under various names, the variable being only the final seasoning. Lobster often reached inland towns already boiled, which is why the recipe assumes cooked flesh and concerns itself with extracting flavour from the parts a diner would otherwise discard. The coral was prized as much for colour as taste; a scarlet dusting over a white potato border was the sort of contrast Victorian table presentation was built on, and the ring of shrimps or prawns round the edge follows the same logic.