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SHRIMPS (a la Dorisa)
Cut some thin slices of brown bread and butter; divide them into strips of two inches by rather more than half an inch. Spread them lightly with a drop or two of anchovy essence and tomato sauce mixed, and roll them up. Cut some very thin rounds of large sound tomatoes, and lay on each a little pile of shrimps (whole ones, potted in butter, are best); round the shrimps, on the tomato, put a ring of cucumber and pickled mango, cut into tiny dice shapes. Round the whole put three or four of the little rolls of bread and butter.
A cold savoury from the era when hors d'oeuvre arrived at table as small assembled objects rather than as a bowl of dip. Nothing is cooked, so everything depends on the quality of the shrimps and the firmness of the tomato.
- The hinge: potted shrimpsThe recipe is only as good as the shrimps, and it recommends them whole and potted in butter — small brown shrimps sealed under spiced clarified butter, sold in tubs in Britain and by mail elsewhere. Let the pot sit at room temperature for fifteen or twenty minutes so the butter softens enough to lift the shrimps out intact; cold, they break up and the butter reads as grease.
- Anchovy essenceA thin, salty bottled anchovy extract, once on every sideboard. Anchovy paste from a tube is the closest thing on a modern shelf, thinned with a little of the tomato sauce so it spreads rather than smears.
- Tomato sauceNot pasta sauce. In Victorian British usage this means a smooth, sharp, spiced bottled tomato condiment — bottled ketchup is its close relative and works here. Use a drop or two, as instructed; the mixture is a seasoning, not a filling.
- Pickled mangoIndian mango pickle or a firm mango chutney, both legacies of the Anglo-Indian pantry, not fresh mango. Pick out solid pieces of fruit and dice them small; drain them on paper first so the oil or syrup does not run across the tomato.
- Tomato roundsCut from the widest part of a large firm tomato, about 3-4 mm thick, and lay the slices on paper towel with a light sprinkle of salt for ten minutes. Seedy or watery slices will collapse under the shrimps within minutes.
- Bread and butter rollsButter the bread while the loaf is fresh and soft or the strips crack when rolled; a dense wholemeal or a good rye works better than a fluffy sandwich loaf. Two inches by rather more than half an inch, as the recipe specifies, gives a very small roll, which is the intended scale.
- Timing and yieldAssemble no more than half an hour before serving, refrigerated and loosely covered, or the bread wicks up tomato juice. Reckon one dressed tomato round with its three or four rolls per person as a first course, or two rounds each as a light lunch plate with salad.
Cassell's belongs to the age of the cold "savoury" and the ornamental hors d'oeuvre, when a well-run English kitchen was expected to produce small, precisely cut, unheated compositions from the store cupboard on short notice. Several elements here are shop-bought preserves — essence, bottled tomato sauce, potted shrimps, pickled mango: the cook assembled rather than cooked, and the skill on display was knife work and proportion. Potted shrimps, brown shrimps sealed under spiced butter, are strongly associated with the Lancashire coast, while the pickled mango is a straightforward trace of Anglo-Indian taste in the late-Victorian larder. "A la Dorisa" follows the Victorian fashion for attaching a decorative feminine name to a garnish or arrangement, in the manner of the French repertoire's dozens of "a la" titles; no particular Dorisa is documented, and the name is best read as culinary window dressing rather than a reference to a person.