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Shellfish a La Queen
Force through food chopper enough Carrot to make 3/4 cup. Put into saucepan with 3 tablespoons butter and 1 teaspoon scraped onion, and cook 10 minutes or until brown, stirring frequently. Add 4 tablespoons flour and when smooth add 1 cup boiling water in which is dissolved 1 teaspoon vegetable or beef extract, and stir until sauce boils. Add 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 1 teaspoon pepper 1 tablespoon lemon juice and a Few grains cayenne. Remove meat from a 1 1/2 pound lobster and cut in pieces the size of scallops. Place 1/2 pint oysters in strainer over bowl and rinse with 2 tablespoons cold water, reserving all liquor. Pick over oysters to be sure that there are no pieces of shell adhering to them, add oysters to liquor, and cook them until the edges curl. Drain, reserving both liquor and oysters, and in the liquor cook 1/2 pint scallops 5 minutes or until tender. To the oyster liquor add Cream to make 1 cup; add to the sauce and bring to boiling point. Add oysters, scallops, and lobster and serve very hot, garnished with bits of Pimiento and Truffles or ripe olives.
A creamed shellfish dish built on a carrot-and-butter roux rather than a plain white sauce. Nearly all the risk here is overcooking, and the original timings push it.
- The hinge: cook the shellfish barely at allOysters are done the moment the edges ruffle, roughly 1 minute in the simmering liquor. Scallops need 1 to 2 minutes, not 5, and bay scallops less; at 5 minutes they tighten and weep. The lobster is already cooked and should only be warmed through in the sauce.
- Food chopperA hand-cranked grinder with a coarse plate. The large holes of a box grater or a few pulses in a food processor give a close enough result: 3/4 cup of shredded carrot, roughly 1 to 2 medium carrots.
- Browning the carrotTen minutes in butter over medium heat is what gives the sauce its color and sweetness. Stir often and let it go golden-brown at the edges; if it scorches the whole sauce turns bitter.
- Vegetable or beef extractA concentrated paste such as Bovril, Marmite or a spoonful of demi-glace concentrate. Modern bouillon cubes are much saltier, so if you use one, cut the added salt back sharply.
- Season at the end, not the startOne teaspoon of black pepper and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt for about 4 cups of finished dish is heavy by current taste, and the oyster liquor is already salty. Add half, then taste after the shellfish goes in.
- Oysters and scallops by volumeHalf a pint of shucked oysters is about 1 cup, roughly 8 to 12 depending on size; half a pint of scallops is about 8 oz. Both are still sold this way at fish counters in some regions.
- Lobster yieldA 1 1/2 lb lobster gives only about 6 oz of picked meat. Buy it cooked, or boil and cool it before picking; cut the tail into rounds so the pieces match the scallops in size.
- Truffles and pimientoCanned truffle was a standard garnish in this period and an expensive one now. Sliced ripe olives, as the recipe allows, or a strip of jarred piquillo pepper does the same visual work.
- Yield and serviceServes about 4 as a luncheon course. Creamed shellfish of this kind was commonly sent to table in pastry shells, on toast points or from a chafing dish, though the recipe does not say so; the sauce thickens as it stands, so thin it with a little cream and serve immediately.
The name is an anglicized "a la reine" — in the queen's style — which in late nineteenth and early twentieth century American cooking was attached to rich creamed mixtures bound with butter, flour and cream. (The origin of chicken a la king is separately disputed and is usually traced to a proper name rather than to "reine.") Its natural home was the chafing dish and the pastry shell. The combination of lobster, oysters and scallops in one dish is a reminder of how plentiful and cheap East Coast shellfish still was: oysters and scallops were sold loose by the pint at fish markets. The browned carrot base is the more unusual touch, a frugal way of getting color and sweetness into a cream sauce without tomato.