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Lobster Patties
Take a medium-sized, freshly-boiled hen lobster, pick out the meat from the tail and claws, mince it finely, and put it into a stewpan with a dessert-spoonful of the spawn, pounded and sifted, an ounce of butter, a tea-spoonful of cream, a tea-spoonful of veal jelly, half a tea-spoonful of the essence of anchovies, a tea-spoonful of grated lemon-rind, and a little salt, pepper, pounded mace, and cayenne. Stir the mixture over the fire for a few minutes. Line some patty-pans with good puff paste, which has been rolled out a quarter of an inch thick, put a crust of bread into each, to preserve the form, lay on the covers, ornament the edges with the back of a knife, brush them over with yolk of egg, and bake in a quick oven. When the patties are baked, take out the bread, partially fill them with the hot mixture, replace the covers, and serve immediately. Dish them on a neatly-folded napkin. Time, a quarter of an hour to bake the patties, five minutes to stew the mixture. Probable cost, 3d. each. Sufficient for three dozen patties.
A Victorian supper-table standby that assumes puff paste shells baked blind and filled at the last moment. Most of the work is in the pastry; the filling takes five minutes and should not be hurried past that.
- Do not let the filling boilAlready-cooked lobster reheated hard turns fibrous and squeaky. Stir it over gentle heat only until the butter and cream come together and it is hot through -- the recipe allows five minutes -- then hold it off the fire.
- A quick oven425-450F (220-230C). Puff paste needs that initial blast for the layers to lift; a moderate oven gives you flat, greasy shells.
- The bread crustThe same principle as blind-baking: a piece of bread in each shell holds the sides up and is lifted out afterwards. Ceramic beans in a paper case do the same job with less risk of scorching.
- Hen lobster and spawnThe "spawn" is the coral, the dark green roe that turns scarlet on cooking, used here for colour and flavour. Egg-bearing (berried) hens must be returned to the water under most current UK and US fishery rules, so buy a cooked hen from a fishmonger rather than expecting roe on demand. If there is none, a little tomato puree or paprika butter restores the colour, not the flavour.
- Veal jellyA spoonful of well-reduced veal stock, set firm when cold. Commercial demi-glace or a cube of concentrated jellied stock is the nearest modern equivalent; it is there for body and savour, not for liquid.
- Essence of anchoviesA thin, salty Victorian bottled sauce. Half a teaspoon of anchovy paste, or a scant teaspoon of anchovy-heavy Worcestershire, sits in about the right place. Salt cautiously afterwards.
- Small measuresA dessert-spoonful is 2 teaspoons. Pounded mace means ground mace, usually described as more delicate than nutmeg, and worth buying rather than substituting.
- YieldThree dozen from a single lobster means very small pans and a thin filling in each. In modern tartlet or muffin tins expect twelve to sixteen, and stretch the filling with a little more cream if needed.
- Assemble at the table's edgeFilled shells go soft within minutes. Bake the cases ahead, keep them warm and dry, and fill only as they go out.
Lobster patties belong to the Victorian supper table rather than to dinner proper: small hot pastries handed round at balls, evening parties and after the theatre, alongside oyster patties, chicken patties and vol-au-vents built on the same shell. The technique is French in origin, and the patty-pan is often said to be an English scaling-down of the bouchee, though the word itself belongs to the French pate/pastry line. The same filling-in-a-blind-baked-case method carries across a dozen other dishes. The recipe's real luxuries are the veal jelly, which presumes a stockpot always going, and the puff paste, which presumes a cook with time and a cold slab.