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Croûtons
Eighteen Olives. One gill of Tartare Sauce. Five Anchovies. Two hard-boiled Eggs. Remove the meat from the shell and head of a lobster, and pound it to a paste with two ounces of butter, one tablespoonful of white wine vinegar, six drops of tarragon, two ounces of white breadcrumbs, and the grated rind and juice of half a lemon. To each eight ounces of lobster use one saltspoonful of nutmeg, the same of cayenne, and one teaspoonful of mustard. Have ready some small croûtons, and put a teaspoonful of the mixture on each. Cover with white cream sauce flavoured with cayenne and lemon juice. Parsley.
Croûtons à l'Espagnole. (Spanish Olives on Croûtes.) Ingredients.
Eighteen slices of Bread.
Two ounces of Butter.
A potted-lobster paste on fried bread, from the era when a savoury came after the sweet. The instructions run straight into the heading of the next recipe, so ignore the trailing "Croûtons à l'Espagnole" ingredients — they belong to a different dish.
- SaltspoonfulA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. So for each 8 oz of lobster meat: 1/4 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp cayenne, 1 tsp mustard — the cayenne is assertive but not a misprint.
- Cooked lobster assumedThe book takes for granted that the lobster is boiled and cold. "Remove the meat from the shell and head" means picking a whole cooked lobster; a 1 1/2 lb lobster yields something in the region of 5 to 6 oz of meat, so the spice ratio given per eight ounces suits a slightly larger one.
- "Six drops of tarragon"Drops point to a tarragon essence or a concentrated tarragon vinegar rather than the chopped herb. Substitute about 1/2 teaspoon of finely chopped fresh tarragon, or use tarragon vinegar in place of the white wine vinegar.
- MustardIn a British book of this date, unqualified "mustard" is dry English mustard powder. A teaspoon of powder is far sharper than a teaspoon of prepared mustard; use the powder for the intended effect.
- The croûtonsSmall rounds or fingers of bread, about 1 1/2 inches, fried in clarified butter until crisp on both sides, then drained. Toasting works but gives a drier base; either way they must be crisp enough to hold sauce without slumping.
- White cream sauceA thin béchamel finished with cream, seasoned with cayenne and lemon juice. Keep it barely pourable — thick enough to coat, thin enough not to bury the lobster.
- Assemble at the last minuteThe bread softens within minutes once the paste and sauce are on it. Fry the croûtons ahead, then top and sauce them as they go to the table.
- YieldThe recipe fixes no quantity of lobster, so the yield depends on the size of the one you pick; at a teaspoonful per croûton, a whole lobster's worth of paste will cover a good many.
The savoury was a fixed course in late Victorian and Edwardian dinners in Britain: a small, sharp, usually salty mouthful served after the sweet and before dessert fruit, meant to settle the palate for the port. Anchovy, cheese, marrow, devilled kidney and potted shellfish all appear in that slot, often on fried or toasted bread — the croûte or croûton — because a crisp base could be prepared in advance in a busy kitchen. The pounded lobster butter here is essentially potted lobster, a preservation technique older than the savoury course itself, in which cooked shellfish was beaten to a paste with butter and spice; nutmeg, cayenne and mace were the standard seasonings, and the mustard and vinegar push it toward the "devilled" end of the same tradition. The recipe gives spices as a ratio per eight ounces of lobster, rather than a fixed amount: the cook is expected to weigh what the fishmonger happened to send.