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Shrimp and Asparagus Sauce
Take twenty-five sticks of asparagus, and cut them into short pieces; then boil them till tender in a little weak broth. Boil half a pint of shrimps, separate the fish from the shells, pound the latter, and set them on the fire with a piece of butter for a few minutes. Then strain through a tamis. Add a spoonful of flour to the shrimp-butter, and thin it with the liquor in which the asparagus was boiled; set it on the fire with a little grated nutmeg, salt, and a piece of butter. When it boils, put in the shrimps and asparagus, give them a boil up, and serve with boiled fowl, fricassee of chicken or veal, etc. Lobsters may be dressed in the same way.
A Victorian compound-butter sauce: the flavour comes almost entirely from pounded shrimp shells, so the shell extraction is the step that decides whether the sauce tastes of anything. Everything else is a plain veloute.
- The hinge: shell butterPound the shells hard — a mortar or a food processor — then warm them in butter until the butter takes colour and smells strongly of shrimp; the recipe allows only "a few minutes". Keep the heat gentle so the butter does not brown.
- TamisA tamis is a drum sieve of fine woven cloth or mesh. A fine chinois or a sieve lined with damp muslin does the same job; press firmly to force the coloured butter through and discard the shell debris.
- Half a pint of shrimpsA volume measure of shrimps in the shell, as sold by the pint at a Victorian fishmonger. Half a pint is perhaps 6 to 8 oz whole, and the picked meat will be considerably less than half that; the conversion is approximate. Small cold-water shrimp or brown shrimp suit the dish; large tiger prawns do not.
- Twenty-five sticks of asparagusTwenty-five spears, perhaps 1 to 1½ lb depending on thickness. Cut into short lengths as directed and simmer only until barely tender.
- Weak brothA light chicken or veal stock, diluted, or vegetable stock. It is there to become the liquid of the sauce, so keep it unsalted until the end and reserve all of it.
- Do not give the shrimps a real boilAlready-cooked shrimp need only 30 to 60 seconds in the finished sauce to warm through. The instruction to "give them a boil up" will make them squeak and toughen; fold them in off the heat if in doubt.
- Proportions and finishA spoonful of flour is probably about a tablespoon, enough to give a light coating sauce; the recipe gives no measure for either piece of butter. Cook the flour in the shrimp butter briefly before adding the asparagus liquor. Note that the original adds the second piece of butter before the sauce boils, not off the heat.
- YieldNo yield is given; the quantities suggest enough to sauce a boiled fowl or a fricassee for four to six. Nutmeg should be a rasp or two, no more.
- The lobster variationLobster shells are far harder; crack and pound them well, and expect to strain twice. The pounded shell butter is worth making in quantity and freezing.
Cassell's belongs to the era when English sauce-making still followed French method at a domestic scale: flavour drawn out of shells with butter, sieved, then bound with flour and stock. Shrimp butter had a long life in British kitchens — the small brown shrimp of the Thames, Morecambe Bay and the Norfolk coast were sold by the pint, though the recipe here begins by instructing the cook to "boil half a pint of shrimps". The recommended partners — boiled fowl, fricassee of chicken or veal — are all pale, mildly flavoured meats that Victorian cooks expected to serve under a sauce rather than alone. The note that "lobsters may be dressed in the same way" is characteristic of the dictionary's habit of teaching a method once and then listing its applications.