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Shrimps, Boiled
Shrimps under-boiled are very indigestible; over-boiled they are tasteless and unwholesome. The time which they take to boil depends upon the size. When they change colour, taste them, in order to ascertain whether or not they are sufficiently done. Shrimps are generally boiled in plain salt and water. M. Soyer recommends that a sprig of lemon-thyme, a sprig of mint, and a bay-leaf should be boiled with them; this is a matter of taste. Put from five to six ounces of salt in a gallon of water. Bring it to the boil, skim carefully, and when it is boiling quickly throw in the shrimps; or, better still, put them in a wire basket with a handle, place them in the water, and when done enough lift them out. Drain the water well from them, and spread them out on a clean cloth to cool. Sometimes dwellers on the sea coast recommend that shrimps should be boiled in sea water; but their flavour is not then so good as when they are boiled in the usual way. Time to boil the shrimps, five to seven minutes, according to size. Probable cost, 2d. to 4d. per pint.
A method rather than a formula: the whole of it turns on not overcooking. The salt ratio holds up well; the timing does not.
- The timing is the thing to changeFive to seven minutes will ruin small shrimp. The brown and pink shrimp this entry has in mind are tiny, and they are done within a minute of the water returning to the boil. Larger warm-water prawns take two to three minutes. Cook until the shells turn pink-red and the flesh is opaque, and lift them out at once.
- Why the book says so longWhy the book may say so long -- one possibility is that Victorian kitchens worked on larger volumes and slower recovery over coal ranges, so a big basketful dropped into a pot could take some time to bring the water back to the boil; but the entry itself says nothing about this, and the reason for the long time is not recorded.
- The saltFive to six ounces per gallon is about 140-170 g in an imperial gallon (4.55 litres), roughly 3 to 3.7 per cent, about the salinity of seawater. That is deliberate: shrimp are seasoned only by the cooking water and nothing is added afterwards. Do not cut it back to ordinary pasta-water levels or they will taste flat.
- Sea waterThe objection here is practical as much as culinary. Coastal sea water varies in salinity, carries sediment, and near any settlement carries worse; use salted tap water.
- Soyer's herbsAlexis Soyer's lemon-thyme, mint and bay are worth trying, but the cooking is so brief that they contribute little. Bring the water to the boil with the herbs in it for ten minutes first, then add the shrimp, or the flavouring is wasted.
- The wire basketA frying basket, pasta insert or large sieve does the job, and is genuinely better than draining through a colander: it gets everything out of the water at the same moment. With a colander the last shrimp are still cooking in residual heat while you fetch it.
- CoolingSpreading them on a cloth stops the carry-over cooking and keeps the shells dry so they peel cleanly. Do not plunge them into iced water, which waterlogs the flesh and washes out the salt you just cooked into them.
- BuyingMuch of the shrimp and prawn sold today is already cooked, or frozen raw and shelled. This method needs raw shrimp in the shell; ask a fishmonger. The pint here is a volume measure of shell-on shrimp, so the yield of edible meat is modest.
Cassell's belongs to a period when shrimp were a cheap, everyday London food, sold by the pint from baskets and eaten at tea with brown bread and butter, shells and all left in a heap on the plate. The price quoted, twopence to fourpence a pint, puts them squarely among working-class provisions. The M. Soyer invoked is Alexis Soyer, the French chef of the Reform Club who became the best-known cookery name in Britain in the mid nineteenth century, and whose opinions are cited throughout Victorian household books as a kind of settled authority. The entry's opening claim that underdone shrimp are indigestible reflects the era's preoccupation with digestion as the chief measure of wholesomeness, a framework that produced a great deal of overcooked shellfish; the instruction to taste and judge by colour, however, is sound and is still how it is done.