Home › The Principles of Cookery › Lobster, Scalloped
Lobster, Scalloped
Take a freshly-boiled hen lobster. Divide the shell into halves without injuring it, take out all the meat, cut it into dice, and put it aside for a short time. Pound the spawn and coral in a mortar, with an ounce of fresh butter, a tea-spoonful of salt, a tea-spoonful of pepper, and a blade of mace, pounded; add a tea-spoonful of anchovy, two table-spoonfuls of white sauce, and a tea-spoonful of strained lemon-juice. Stir all gently over the fire for ten minutes, then put in the meat of the lobster and the beaten yolks of two eggs. When quite hot turn the mixture into the two halves of the lobster shell, strew bread-crumbs over, brown them with a salamander, and serve on a folded napkin. Garnish with parsley. Probable cost, 2s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A Victorian dressed-lobster dish that stands or falls on the coral butter and on not scrambling the egg yolks. Everything else is assembly.
- The hinge: gentle heat after the yolks go inOnce the two beaten yolks join the hot lobster mixture, the pan must stay below a simmer and be stirred constantly. Any real boil and the yolks curdle into grains, which no amount of stirring will smooth out.
- A hen lobster and her coralThe recipe depends on a female lobster carrying roe: the dark spawn turns coral-red on cooking and is pounded with butter for colour and flavour. If your lobster has none, the dish still works but will be pale — a pinch of paprika or a little tomato paste can stand in for the colour, though not for the taste.
- "A tea-spoonful of anchovy"This means anchovy essence, a thin bottled sauce of the period. Use about half a teaspoon of anchovy paste, or one mashed salted fillet, and taste before adding the full teaspoon of salt — both essence and paste are already very salty.
- White sauceA plain béchamel: butter and flour cooked together, let down with milk or fish stock to a thick pouring consistency. Two tablespoons is all that is wanted, so make it as part of another dish or accept the small quantity.
- Blade of maceA whole strip of the lacy aril around nutmeg. Pounded, one blade yields somewhere between a quarter and a half teaspoon of ground mace; ground mace from a jar is a fair substitute at that quantity.
- The pepperA full teaspoon of pepper for one lobster is heavy by modern palates and will dominate the coral. Start with a quarter teaspoon of white pepper and adjust.
- Salamander means broilerA salamander was an iron plate heated red and held over the surface to brown it. Run the filled shells under a hot broiler for two to three minutes, close to the element, watching constantly — the mixture is already hot and only the crumbs need colour. Dot the crumbs with a little butter so they brown rather than dry.
- Yield"Five or six persons" reflects a Victorian table of many courses. As a lunch or supper dish, one lobster filling two half-shells serves two, generously three.
Scalloped or dressed lobster served back in its own shell was a fixture of the late-Victorian supper table, where the split carapace on a folded napkin did as much work as the food inside it. Cassell's places it among a run of lobster dishes whose "probable cost" of 2s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. was a real but not extravagant sum for a household with a cook. The coral butter here, spawn pounded with butter and seasonings, is an older technique still used in classical kitchens to colour and enrich lobster sauces; the anchovy essence and blade of mace are equally of their moment, when bottled fish sauces and whole spices pounded in a mortar were how a cook built savoury depth before commercial stock and pepper grinders. The salamander that browns the crumbs gave its name to the modern overhead broiler unit still called a salamander in professional kitchens.