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SHRIMPS (en Coquilles)
Take some coquilles, or small silver shells, or, failing these, some small shallow dishes. Butter them thickly; fill them with shrimps which have been cut up small, and stirred into thick white sauce, flavoured with shrimp butter. Sprinkle fried and seasoned bread-crumbs over them, and heat them in the oven or before the fire. Serve the coquilles on a hot dish, and garnish with parsley. Time, a few minutes to heat the preparation.
A late-Victorian way of stretching a small quantity of picked shrimps into a hot first course. Almost everything hinges on the shrimps being already cooked: the dish is a reheating job, not a cooking one.
- Heat, don't cookThe shrimps in this recipe are cooked and picked before they go near the sauce. Give the filled shells only long enough to bubble at the edges and colour the crumbs; the recipe allows only "a few minutes to heat the preparation," and a hot oven will do it in something like five to eight minutes. Longer and the shrimp go tight and squeaky.
- CoquillesScallop shells, or the silver-plated imitations sold for the purpose. Individual ramekins, gratin dishes or ovenproof cocottes of about 1/2 cup capacity do the same job. Set them on a baking sheet so they can be moved in and out easily.
- Shrimp butterMade by pounding the shells and heads of the shrimps with butter, then heating and straining it. It carries most of the flavour of the dish and is worth making from the debris of the picking; the recipe gives no proportion, but a few ounces of butter worked with the shells of a pound of shrimps is a workable one. A modern shortcut of butter warmed with a little tomato paste and cayenne is not the same thing, but it is closer than plain butter.
- Thick white sauceA b e be cchamel stiff enough to hold its shape on a spoon — roughly 1 oz butter and 1 oz flour to 1/2 pint of milk. It must be thick, or the filling weeps into the shells as it heats. Season it well; the sauce takes salt and a good pinch of cayenne.
- The shrimpsVictorian recipes mean small brown or pink shrimps sold ready boiled and picked, not the large warm-water prawns of a modern counter. If using larger prawns, cut them small as instructed, or the texture of the filling goes lumpy.
- Fried crumbsNot raw crumbs. Fresh breadcrumbs tossed in butter in a pan until golden and dry, then seasoned. They go on at the last moment and are the reason the top browns in the short heating time.
- "Before the fire"Means propped in front of an open fire. Browning under a grill on high, or a salamander, for two or three minutes and watched, is the nearest modern equivalent.
- YieldAbout 8 oz of picked shrimps and 1/2 pint of sauce fills four to six coquilles — a first course for four, or a savoury at the end of a meal.
Serving food en coquille — in a shell — was a standard Victorian and Edwardian device for turning a small amount of expensive fish into a formal course, and scallop shells were kept in the kitchen and washed for reuse, with electroplated silver copies sold for households wanting something smarter. The shrimps meant here are the small brown and pink shrimps of the English coasts, landed in quantity at places like Morecambe Bay and the Thames estuary, sold boiled and often picked by hand at home; the same shrimp underlies potted shrimps and shrimp sauce, both fixtures of the period. Shrimp butter, made from the pounded shells, belongs to the frugal side of the Victorian kitchen, where nothing with flavour left in it was discarded.