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LOBSTER, POTTED (another way)
Pick the meat from a medium-sized, freshly-boiled hen lobster. Tear the white part into flakes with two forks, and pound a table-spoonful of it with the soft parts and the spawn in a mortar. Use the same seasoning as in the last recipe. When ready, press the red and white meat into jars in layers, and cover with clarified butter. When prepared in this way the appearance of the lobster is better than when the last recipe is followed, but the meat will not keep so long. Time, about an hour and a half to prepare. Probable cost of lobster, 1s. 6d. Sufficient for half a dozen persons.
A Victorian potted lobster that trades keeping quality for looks: flakes of white meat layered with a pounded coral-red paste, sealed under clarified butter. Two things need attention before you start — the seasoning is carried over from the preceding recipe, and the keeping instructions belong to a cold larder, not a modern kitchen.
- The missing seasoning"The same seasoning as in the last recipe" refers back to the preceding entry, which is not reproduced here, so the exact mix cannot be recovered from this page; Victorian potting seasonings of this kind generally ran to salt, cayenne, mace and nutmeg worked with butter. Season the pounded paste firmly, since chilled butter-sealed food tastes flatter cold than it does warm from the mortar.
- Hen lobster and spawnA hen is a female; the "spawn" is the coral, which turns scarlet on cooking, and the "soft parts" are the green tomalley. Egg-bearing (berried) hens cannot legally be landed in most fisheries now, so you are unlikely to find one — buy a cooked lobster and use whatever coral and tomalley it carries, or make the paste with white meat and butter alone. Some health authorities advise limiting tomalley because it concentrates contaminants and biotoxins.
- Treat it as a fresh potted pasteThe butter cap excludes air, which is exactly what made potted fish a botulism risk in unrefrigerated larders. Keep the jars in the refrigerator from the moment they set and eat within three days; do not leave them at room temperature or bury them at the back of a cupboard as the original assumes.
- Clarified butterMelt unsalted butter gently, skim the foam, and pour off the clear fat leaving the milky solids behind. Milk solids are what sours a potted jar first, so the pour matters more than the quantity.
- The mortarA tablespoon of white meat pounded with the coral and tomalley is a small amount of work by hand and gives a smoother, more even paste than a processor, which tends to whip air in. If you use a machine, pulse it and stop while the mixture still has body.
- LayeringPress each layer down hard to drive out air pockets before adding the next, and give the filled jar a sharp tap on the bench before the butter goes on. Air trapped between layers is what makes potted meat go grey at the seams.
- Timing and yieldThe hour and a half plausibly covers picking a whole lobster; the pounding and potting are quick by comparison. Six servings as a first course or on toast, from one medium lobster.
- The price1s. 6d. — eighteen pence — for a medium lobster.
Potting is one of the oldest English preservation methods still recognisable in the kitchen: cooked meat or fish pounded with spice and butter, packed tight, and sealed under a layer of fat that keeps the air out. It predates domestic refrigeration by centuries and was used for shellfish, game and cured tongue; potted shrimps and potted crab are the surviving descendants. The preceding version pounds everything to a uniform paste, while this one keeps the white flakes visible for the sake of the red-and-white layering, and the frank admission that the prettier version spoils sooner is the sort of practical trade-off Victorian household manuals stated plainly.