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Fagadu Bradu
Take of spinach that has been well washed and drained, enough for a dish; stew it over a slow fire until half done, then press out all the moisture, and add to it the whole of a lobster cut into bits--small ones, and seasoned with cayenne and salt to taste--2 tablespoonfuls of curry-powder, and 2 ounces of butter. Stew till the spinach is quite tender, which will be in about fifteen minutes.
A short Anglo-Indian side dish: stewed spinach enriched with butter, curry powder and picked lobster meat. The whole thing takes about twenty minutes once the lobster is out of the shell.
- The lobster is already cookedThe lobster is probably already cooked -- lobster was commonly sold ready-boiled and shelled at home, which is the likeliest reading here, though the recipe does not say. Reckon on roughly 4 to 6 oz of picked meat from a 1 to 1 1/2 lb cooked lobster. The recipe adds it before the second stewing; if you would rather it stayed tender, add it only in the last few minutes.
- "Enough for a dish"For four servings, start with about 2 lb of fresh spinach. It collapses to a fraction of its raw bulk, and this dish is meant to read as spinach with lobster in it, not the reverse.
- No added waterSpinach stews in the water clinging to its leaves. A slow fire means low heat and a lid; if the pan runs dry before the leaves collapse, a spoonful of water is enough.
- Pressing out the moisture matters mostSqueeze the half-cooked spinach hard, in a sieve or a clean towel. Skip it and the butter and curry powder float in green liquid instead of coating the leaves.
- Two tablespoons of curry powder is assertivePeriod commercial curry powders are generally thought to have been milder and more turmeric-heavy than many blends sold today, though recipes and brands varied widely. With a modern blend, start with one tablespoon, taste, and add more; the cayenne on the lobster adds heat on top of it.
- Bloom the powder in the butterRaw curry powder stirred into wet spinach tastes dusty. Melt the 2 oz butter, stir the powder into it over low heat for a minute until fragrant, then combine.
- Fifteen minutes is for older spinachCoarse, mature leaves with thick stalks will take that long. Young bagged spinach is tender in three or four minutes total, so shorten the second stewing accordingly.
- ServingServes four as a side, or two on buttered toast as a luncheon dish. It is good hot but does not reheat well, as the lobster firms up.
Curry powder as a jar of ready-mixed spice was a British commercial product from the late eighteenth century onwards, and in the household compendia of the nineteenth century it had become an all-purpose seasoning applied well beyond anything an Indian cook would recognise, including to vegetables, soups and leftover fish. Pairing it with lobster fits a broader Anglo-Indian habit visible in dishes such as curried prawns and other curried fish, where seafood and mild spice were thought to flatter each other.