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Croûtes à la Josephine
Ingredients.
One small Lobster.
Two tablespoonfuls of White Sauce.
One tablespoonful of Cream.
One tablespoonful of Tomato Sauce.
One tablespoonful of Aspic Jelly.
Two sheets of Gelatine.
A few drops of Lemon Juice.
The book gives only the ingredient list — the method belonged to the class or demonstration this entry came from. What survives is enough to place the dish: a set lobster cream, piped or spooned onto fried or baked bread rounds and glazed with aspic.
- CroûtesCroûtes -- Small rounds of bread, cut and either fried in butter or dried out in a slow oven until crisp; the size and treatment are not specified here and must be inferred. They should be cold and dry before the lobster mixture goes on, or they soften under it.
- One small lobsterProbably a whole lobster of roughly 1 to 1 1/4 lb., yielding something like 4-5 oz of picked meat. Two cooked lobster tails, or an equivalent weight of picked meat from a fishmonger, stand in for it.
- White sauceA plain béchamel of the period — roughly equal butter and flour cooked together, then let down with milk, cooked out and seasoned, then cooled. It is the binder, not a flavour; keep it thick enough to hold a shape.
- Two sheets of gelatineLeaf gelatine of the period was not standardised, and its strength relative to modern leaf cannot be assumed. Modern platinum-grade leaves weigh about 1.7 g each, and two of them to the roughly 2 1/2 fl oz of liquid this recipe lists will set very firmly. Err on the side of less and test a spoonful on a cold plate.
- Aspic jellyA clarified, well-seasoned savoury jelly made from veal or fish stock; a good fish or chicken consommé set with gelatine gives the same effect. Whether the single tablespoonful was meant for glazing the finished croûtes or went into the mixture cannot be told from the ingredient list.
- Tomato sauce and lemonThe tomato is there for colour as much as taste — it turns the pale lobster cream a coral pink. Add the lemon juice at the end, off the heat, and taste before setting; once the gelatine has taken you cannot correct the seasoning.
- Assembly and chillingMix while the gelatine liquid is warm and the base cool, then set the coated croûtes in the refrigerator until firm before glazing with the aspic, which should be on the point of setting when brushed on.
- YieldThe quantities are small; they will coat only a handful of croûtes, and the exact number depends on how thickly the mixture is laid on. Serve cold, on the day they are made.
The savoury was a distinctly British course, served after the sweet and before dessert at late-Victorian and Edwardian dinners, and cookery schools of the period turned out dozens of variations on the same idea: something highly seasoned, anchovy, cheese, roe or shellfish, mounted on a small round of fried bread. Names like he currcurrency of that world \by convixed by convention rather than by any documented connection to the Empress Joséphine." The reliance on aspic and sheet gelatine is the signature of the era: a glossy aspic glaze was the mark of a dish that had passed through trained hands. That the book prints ingredients without method is a reminder of what it was for — a set of memoranda for cooks already taught the technique, not a manual for beginners.