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Devilled Crabs
1 cup chopped crab meat 1/4 cup mushrooms, finely chopped 2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons flour 2/3 cup White Stock Yolks 2 eggs 2 tablespoons Sherry wine 1 teaspoon finely chopped parsley Salt and pepper Make a sauce of butter, flour, and stock; add yolks of eggs, seasonings (except parsley), crab meat, and mushrooms. Cook three minutes, add parsley, and cool mixture. Wash and trim crab shells, fill rounding with mixture, sprinkle with stale bread crumbs mixed with a small quantity of melted butter. Crease on top with a case knife, having three lines parallel with each other across shell and three short lines branching from outside parallel lines. Bake until crumbs are brown.
A classic stuffed-shell entrée built on a thick velouté bound with egg yolk. The mixture is cooked before it goes into the shells, so the bake is only to brown the crumbs.
- OvenNo temperature is given. Bake at 400F on an upper rack for 10-15 minutes, until the crumbs are deep gold; the filling is already cooked through.
- White StockA light stock from veal and/or fowl, a standard preparation in books of this era. Any low-sodium chicken stock stands in; 2/3 cup is a scant 160 ml.
- The hingeAdd the yolks off the heat, or tempered with a spoonful of the hot sauce, then return the pan to low heat. The three minutes of cooking must never reach a simmer or the yolks will curdle and the filling will break.
- ConsistencyTwo tablespoons each of butter and flour to 2/3 cup stock gives a very stiff panada, which is intentional. The mixture should hold a shape when cooled so it can be mounded in the shells.
- Crab meatA cup of picked meat is roughly 5-6 oz. Lump or claw meat both work; fold it in at the end so it does not shred to threads.
- ShellsScrub and boil the top shells if you have them from whole crabs, or use ceramic crab shells or shallow ramekins. "Fill rounding" means heaped above the rim, not level.
- Crumbs"Stale bread crumbs" here means dry crumbs from day-old bread, not the fine commercial kind; tossed with a little melted butter they brown evenly. Panko is a reasonable substitute.
- The creasingThe scored pattern is decoration only, cut with a case knife (a table knife) before baking. Skipping it costs nothing but the period look.
- YieldFills about four shells or ramekins; serves four as a first course, two as a light main with bread and a salad.
Devilled crab belongs to a long American run of dishes served back in their own shells, popular in hotel dining rooms and household manuals in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. "Devilled" in nineteenth-century usage meant sharply seasoned, usually with mustard and cayenne; this version is notably restrained, leaning on sherry, parsley and mushrooms instead. The instruction to score a decorative pattern with a case knife suggests a kitchen in which entrées were expected to be presented as much as eaten, and in which crabs were likely bought whole and the shells kept for reuse.