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Cayenne and Salt (One ounce of Breadcrumbs)
One ounce of Breadcrumbs..
Half a pint of picked Shrimps. One gill of Cream. One gill of Brown Stock. Two Eggs. One tablespoonful of Chutney. Three Spanish Olives. Two French Gherkins. Put the shrimps, chutney, gherkins, and olives (stoned) in a mortar, and pound them until very fine, then add the stock. Beat up the cream until it is stiff. Put the shrimps, etc., through a fine K2 sieve, and mix them with the cream, season with a pinch of cayenne and salt.
Have ready six or eight very small timbaleor dariole-shaped moulds, butter these well, and sprinkle them with breadcrumbs (panurette is best to use for this purpose). Put the moulds in a sauté-pan three parts filled with boiling water, cover with buttered paper, and steam for about twenty minutes, then turn them out and serve with watercress sauce.
This is a small steamed shrimp timbale from the savoury course, and the page as printed has lost most of its ingredient list — only the breadcrumbs survived in the heading. Quantities for the shrimps, chutney, gherkins, olives, stock and cream have to be judged by the cook.
- The missing quantitiesThe method names six ingredients the ingredient list no longer supplies. For six to eight dariole moulds, working proportions would be roughly half a pound of picked shrimps to a gill (half a cup) of whipped cream, with the chutney, gherkins and olives as seasonings measured in teaspoons rather than ounces — but that is reconstruction, not what the book says.
- PanuretteA commercial dried, sieved, pale-golden breadcrumb sold for coating. Fine dried breadcrumbs, sifted, do the same job; fresh crumbs will go soggy against the buttered mould and spoil the turn-out.
- The K2 sieveThe marking is not explained in the book and may be a mesh or trade designation for a fine wire sieve; in practice what is wanted is a tamis. The point is to remove shrimp shell fragments and olive skin after pounding. A drum sieve or a fine chinois with a ladle worked against it does the same job; a food processor pounds but does not strain, so the sieving step still matters.
- A gill of stockThe stock -- No quantity is given. If you work in old measures, a gill is a quarter of an imperial pint, about five fluid ounces. Use only enough to loosen the pounded paste for sieving -- too much and the timbales will not set when steamed.
- The hinge: fold, do not stirThe cream is whipped stiff and then combined with the cold shrimp purée. Folding keeps the air that gives these their lightness; beating it in gives a dense, rubbery timbale.
- Steaming, not bakingThe moulds sit in a sauté pan three parts filled with boiling water, covered with buttered paper. Keep the water at a bare shiver rather than a rolling boil — hard boiling curdles the cream and pocks the surface. Twenty minutes is right for small darioles; they are done when just firm to a light press and a skewer comes out clean.
- Turning outRest the moulds a minute off the heat before inverting, and run a thin knife round the rim. The buttered-and-crumbed lining is what releases them, so butter right into the base and corners of the mould.
- Yield and serviceSix to eight moulds, one per person, served hot as a savoury at the end of dinner or as a first course. The book does not give the watercress sauce here; it would most likely have been a cream or velouté sauce finished with blanched, sieved watercress -- sharp and green against the rich shrimp.
The savoury — a small hot, salty dish served after the sweet and before dessert — was a peculiarly British course, at its height in the late Victorian and Edwardian dining rooms these high-class cookery books were written for. It was commonly said to be there to ready the palate for port, which is offered as the reason savouries run so heavily to anchovy, cheese, shrimp and cayenne. The chutney in the mixture is a quiet marker of the same period's Anglo-Indian pantry, by then familiar in British kitchens; the dariole mould, the mortar and the tamis point to the other influence, French professional technique taken up by the English cook-housekeeper. Shrimps were a natural choice: potted and picked shrimps were a staple of the British coast and travelled well inland.