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PRAWNS (a la Francaise)
Put four ounces of butter, the juice of a lemon, and a sprinkling of cayenne into a saucepan, then put in a pint of picked prawns; allow them to cook until the butter begins to turn pink, then add half a cupful of white sauce. Serve on toast with a slice of lemon.
A very short buttered-prawn dish that depends entirely on not overcooking shellfish that has, in the original context, already been cooked once. Read the timing note first.
- "Picked prawns" were already cookedIn British fishmongers of this period prawns were sold boiled, and "picked" simply means shelled. The pan work is reheating, not cooking: one to two minutes of gentle turning in the butter is enough, and anything beyond that gives you rubber. If you are starting from raw shell-on prawns, cook them separately until just opaque, then shell them.
- A pint of prawnsThis is a volume measure of shelled prawns, roughly 12 oz to 1 lb by weight depending on size. Small cold-water prawns suit the dish better than large tiger prawns, which release more water.
- "Until the butter begins to turn pink"The colour comes from carotenoid pigment leaching out of the prawns into the hot fat. It is a visual cue, not a doneness test, and with modern peeled prawns it may barely appear. Do not keep the pan going in pursuit of the colour.
- Butter and heatFour ounces is one US stick, about 115 g, which is generous for a pint of prawns and is meant to make a sauce rather than a fry. Keep the heat moderate so the butter never browns; browned butter with lemon and cayenne turns bitter.
- White sauceHalf a cupful; most likely a plain milk bechamel, milk thickened with a roux and seasoned with salt. Have it made and warm before you start, since the whole dish takes under five minutes.
- Cayenne'A sprinkling' is not quantified in the original; start with an eighth of a teaspoon and adjust off the heat.
- Yield and servingEnough for two as a light supper or three or four as a savoury course, spooned over hot buttered toast cut into fingers. Serve immediately: the sauce splits and the toast collapses if it stands.
Cassell's gives a great many prawn dishes, and it may be relevant that boiled picked prawns were a cheap, ready-to-eat staple of the late-Victorian fish trade, sold by the pint and eaten cold with bread and butter as often as they were cooked. Dressing them "à la Française" here seems to mean little more than the presence of butter, lemon and a white sauce — in English cookery books of the period the tag is often said to have been applied loosely to anything finished with a French-style sauce rather than to a specific Parisian dish. The format — something rich and highly seasoned served in a small quantity on toast — belongs to the British savoury course, the salty mouthful served after the sweet at dinner, which is also where anchovy toast, devilled roe and Scotch woodcock lived.