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Cayenne Pepper and Lobster Coral
Cut some pieces of bread, round or square, half an inch thick and an inch and a half wide; I 2 hollow out the centre a little; fry them in clarified butter; drain on a cloth. Chop up the crayfish tails or some prawns, season with a little Tartare sauce.
Put a little mustard and cress at the bottom of each croûte; dress some of the prawn or crayfish paste in the form of a pyramid on the top. Pound a few chervil, tarragon, and spinach leaves, previously blanched, pass through a fine sieve, and mix with some Tartare sauce; dish up, garnish with cress, sprinkle with lobster coral and cayenne, and serve.
Croûtes d'Écrevisses à la Cardinal. (Croûtes of Prawns.) Ingredients.
Six or eight round Dinner Rolls.
Eighteen large Prawns.
One large Gherkin.
A cold savoury built on fried bread croûtes: crayfish or prawn meat bound with tartare sauce, set on a bed of cress and finished with a green herb sauce, coral and cayenne. Everything but the croûtes can be prepared ahead, but assembly must be immediate.
- Assemble at the last momentThe hinge of the dish is dryness. A fried croûte holding wet cress and mayonnaise-based sauce collapses within minutes, so fill and dress only as the plates go out.
- Clarified butterButter with the milk solids removed, which lets you fry the bread to a clean gold without the flecks burning. Ordinary butter cut with a little neutral oil is a workable substitute.
- Croûte sizeHalf an inch thick and an inch and a half across gives a one- or two-bite base. Hollowing the centre with a small spoon or a smaller cutter creates the well that holds the filling; do this before frying, not after.
- Crayfish and prawnsThe original assumes freshwater crayfish tails, cooked and shelled. Cooked cold-water prawns or shell-on prawns you have poached and peeled yourself both work; drain them well and pat dry, or the paste will slacken.
- Lobster coralThe dark green roe of a hen lobster, which turns coral red on cooking, then dried and sieved to a powder for colouring and garnish. It is rarely sold separately now; sieved hard-boiled egg yolk mixed with a pinch of paprika gives the look, if not the flavour.
- The green sauceChervil, tarragon and spinach leaves are blanched to fix the colour, then pounded and sieved. A small food processor and a fine sieve replace the mortar; blanch for no more than thirty seconds and refresh in iced water or the green dulls.
- Mustard and cressThe sprouted seedlings sold in punnets, not watercress, though watercress leaves stand in acceptably. Snip rather than chop so the stems stay upright under the filling.
- CayenneUsed here as a finishing spice for heat and colour. Applied at the end and unevenly, it is easy to overdo on a single small croûte; a light dusting from a shaker rather than a pinch from the fingers.
- YieldNot stated. Reckon on three or four croûtes a head as a savoury course, or one apiece passed with drinks.
Savouries occupied an odd slot in late-Victorian and Edwardian dinners: a small, sharp, often piquant mouthful served after the sweet to close the meal, a British habit that puzzled French cooks and declined through the mid-twentieth century along with the long formal dinner. Croûtes of this kind were the format of choice because they used up cooked shellfish, and because a fried bread base could be cut and fried well in advance in a professional kitchen. The à la Cardinal label attached to such dishes generally points to red colour, and by extension to lobster or crayfish, the coral being the pigment that gave the name its point. Lobster coral and cayenne together were a common finishing pair in books of this class, doing the work of both garnish and seasoning at a time when shellfish butters and dried corals were kept as kitchen staples rather than bought.