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Lobster Croquettes
Pick the meat carefully from the shell of a freshly-boiled hen lobster, and mince it very finely. Pound the coral and spawn in a mortar, and mix with it a little grated nutmeg, three grains of cayenne, a tea-spoonful of anchovy sauce, two table-spoonfuls of white sauce, and the well-beaten yolks of three eggs. Add the minced lobster, and stir all these ingredients over a gentle fire until the egg is set. Spread the mixture on a plate, and when cold, make it up into the shape of corks. Dip these in beaten egg, roll them in bread-crumbs, and fry them in hot fat until they are lightly browned all over. Drain them, and pile them upon a folded napkin, in a hot dish. Garnish with parsley. Time, eight minutes to fry. Probable cost, 2s. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A Victorian croquette built on lobster coral rather than a heavy panade, so the binding depends entirely on egg yolk setting gently. That is the step that decides whether the mixture holds its shape.
- The hinge: set the yolks, do not scramble themStir the yolk mixture over low heat, or better a bain-marie, until it thickens to a stiff paste that pulls from the pan. If it breaks into curds the croquettes will crumble in the fat; there is no flour here to rescue them.
- Hen lobster and coralA "hen" lobster is female, wanted for the dark green roe (the "spawn") that turns coral-red on cooking. Female lobsters with roe are seasonal and in some fisheries landing egg-bearing females is restricted, so if you cannot get coral, substitute two tablespoons more white sauce and accept a paler, milder croquette.
- Three grains of cayenneAn apothecary's grain is about 65 mg, so three grains is roughly 0.2 g, or something like an eighth of a teaspoon. Treat it as a large pinch.
- White sauceOnly two tablespoons are used, so it needs to be a thick, well-reduced sauce rather than a pouring one; a thin sauce will slacken the mixture.
- Anchovy sauceThe Victorian bottled anchovy sauce was a thin brown seasoning condiment. A teaspoon of anchovy paste thinned with a little water, or Worcestershire sauce, gives the same salty-savoury lift.
- Chill properly"When cold" means genuinely firm. Spread no more than half an inch thick and refrigerate at least two hours before shaping; a warm mixture will not take crumbs cleanly.
- FryingDeep-fry at 180C / 350F. The eight minutes given is probably meant for the whole batch rather than each croquette: cork-sized pieces of already-cooked filling need only two to three minutes to colour and heat through.
- Yield and servingThe recipe reckons one hen lobster sufficient for four or five, which suits a first course. The folded napkin was there to absorb fat; a rack and a warm plate do the job now.
Croquettes were one of the workhorses of the nineteenth-century English kitchen, a French technique adopted wholesale to turn expensive cooked protein into a dish that looked generous. The name comes from the French croquer, to crunch. That this version binds with pounded coral and egg yolk rather than the thick flour-and-butter panade found in other recipes of the period places it closer to the older forcemeat tradition, where the roe of a hen lobster was prized both as a thickener and as the source of the pink colour cooks used to tint sauces and butters. The costing of two shillings is a reminder of how these books were used: Cassell's gave a probable cost and a number of servings for almost every entry so a household could plan against a fixed weekly budget.