Creamed Lobster on Toast

A straightforward creamed shellfish dish that depends entirely on restraint at the stove. The sauce does the work; the lobster only needs to warm through.

• Do not let it boilThe instruction to simmer rather than boil is the hinge of the recipe. Cooked lobster meat toughens and turns stringy in a boiling sauce, and hard boiling can spoil the texture of a cream sauce. Keep it barely steaming; if the lobster is already fully cooked, as bought meat will be, two or three minutes is enough to heat it through.
• A pint of diced lobsterMeasured by volume, not weight. A pint of picked, diced meat is roughly 10-12 oz, which means two 1 1/4-lb cooked lobsters or about three if they are small. Frozen or canned lobster meat works, drained well.
• Rich cream sauceIn cookbooks of this period 'cream sauce' generally means a white sauce made with cream, or with milk enriched by cream. For the pint called for, about 3 tbsp butter, 3 tbsp flour and 2 cups liquid gives a sauce of medium body. Season with salt, cayenne and, if you like, a little nutmeg or dry mustard; the lobster's coral can be worked in to deepen colour and flavour.
• Cayenne, not black pepperThe heat here is deliberate and characteristic of the period's shellfish cookery. Start with 1/4 tsp for a pint of sauce and adjust; it should prickle rather than burn.
• The lemon restLetting the diced meat stand a few minutes in lemon juice brightens the flavour before it disappears into the cream. The recipe says 'a little': a teaspoon or two per pint of meat is enough, and more acid risks affecting the sauce.
• Toast roundsCut with a biscuit cutter from bread a good half-inch thick, toasted dry and buttered while hot so it does not go soggy under the sauce. Have the platter and the toast hot before the lobster goes into the sauce.
• YieldA pint each of lobster and sauce serves four generously as a lunch or supper dish, six as a first course.