Vivian Wessell
1 cup crab meat
DEVILLED CRABS
1/2 cup chopped mushrooms 2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons flour 1/2 cup water 2 tablespoons sherry wine 1 teaspoon chopped parsley Salt, pepper and paprika Yolks of two eggs Make a sauce of butter, water, flour, eggs and seasoning, crab and mushrooms. Cook all a few minutes; add parsley and set to cool. Wash and dry empty crab shells. Fill them with mixture and sprinkle with dry bread crumbs. Bake until brown on top.
Yours very truly,
A short, loosely written chafing-dish-era recipe: the ingredient list and the method don't quite match, so a little reconstruction is needed before you start.
- The hinge: temper the yolksThe yolks go into a hot butter-flour-water sauce and will scramble if dropped in straight. Make the roux, whisk in the water, cook it thick, pull the pan off the heat, then beat a spoonful of the hot sauce into the yolks before returning them to the pan.
- The sherry is missing from the methodTwo tablespoons of sherry appear in the list and never again. Add it with the crab and mushrooms, off the boil, so the alcohol softens but the aroma survives.
- "Bake until brown on top"No temperature is given. Everything in the filling is already cooked, so this is a browning job: a hot oven, around 425F, for 10-15 minutes, or a few minutes under the broiler.
- Crab shellsThe recipe assumes you have empty crab backs; these can still be had frozen or from a good fishmonger. Scrub, boil briefly and dry them. Individual gratin dishes, scallop shells or 4 oz ramekins do the same work.
- Crab meatA cup is about 5-6 oz, roughly one 6 oz tin of picked meat. Lump crab holds its texture; claw meat gives more flavour for less money. Fold it in at the end rather than cooking it hard, since it is already cooked.
- Water, not milkThe sauce base is water thickened with a roux and enriched with yolks - lighter and more crab-flavoured than the milk-based devilled crab found in many other books. Crab or shrimp stock in place of the water is a straight improvement.
- "Devilled" here means paprikaThe heat is left to the cook. Period devilling usually meant dry mustard and cayenne as well; a half teaspoon of mustard powder and a pinch of cayenne brings the dish up to what the name promises.
- CrumbsDry breadcrumbs alone can scorch before the filling heats through. Toss them with a little melted butter first, or the tops brown unevenly.
- YieldEnough for four small shells as a first course, or two as a light supper.
Devilled crab belongs to the same turn-of-the-century repertoire as lobster Newburg and creamed oysters: shellfish bound in a rich sauce, returned to its shell, crumbed and browned. "Devilled" had meant sharply seasoned since at least the early nineteenth century, usually with mustard and cayenne, though paprika is often said to have been gaining ground as the milder, prettier alternative. This book gathered such recipes from stage performers of the day, each signed off as a letter, which is why the page ends mid-courtesy with "Yours very truly" and no further instruction.