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Lobster Coral
Eighteen slices of Bread. Two ounces of Butter. Eighteen Olives. One gill of Tartare Sauce. Five Anchovies. Two hard-boiled Eggs. Parsley. Cut eighteen round slices of bread about an inch and a half in diameter and one-eighth of an inch thick, fry in butter, and drain. Stone as many large Spanish olives with a sharp tube cutter; fill with some stiff Tartare sauce; place one in the centre of each croûton, curl an anchovy fillet round it; garnish with finely chopped hard-boiled egg, lobster coral, and sprigs of parsley. Dish up on small hors-d'œuvres dishes, and serve.
A cold canapé built on fried bread rounds; nothing is cooked once assembled, so everything hinges on the components being ready and dry before you start building.
- Lobster coralThe dark green roe of a hen lobster, which turns coral-red when cooked. Take it from a boiled lobster, dry it in a low oven or in a pan until crumbly, then push it through a fine sieve to make the red powder used as garnish. If no coral is available, sieved cooked egg yolk tinted with a little paprika gives the same visual effect.
- CroûtonsRounds 1.5 inches across and 1/8 inch thick; a close-crumbed white loaf cuts cleanest. The recipe says only 'fry in butter'; clarifying it first helps the bread colour without the butter browning. Drain on paper and cool completely; a warm croûton will soften under the sauce.
- Stoning the olivesThe 'tube cutter' is a small round column cutter, of a bore just wider than the stone. Push it through the olive from the stem end to remove the stone in a plug, leaving the walls whole. Large Spanish olives are specified; pre-pitted olives are often torn at one end and will not stand upright as neatly.
- Stiff Tartare sauceTartare of this period is a mayonnaise-based sauce, usually with chopped capers, gherkin, and herbs, rather than the pourable bottled version. Make it thick enough to hold a peak so it can be piped into the olive and will not weep onto the bread.
- Anchovy filletsSalt-packed or oil-packed fillets, rinsed and blotted. If they are stiff, soak briefly in milk to soften and reduce the salt, then dry them, or they will not curl round the olive without breaking.
- Assembly and yieldEighteen croûtons would give three apiece to six people; the recipe says only to dish them up on small hors-d'oeuvres dishes, without saying how many. Build them shortly before serving and keep them cool but covered, or the bread dries out.
- Garnish orderThe recipe does not specify whether the chopped egg and coral go on each croûton or over the dish as a whole. The parsley listed at the head of the recipe is for the sprigs at the finish.
This is a canapé in the strict Edwardian sense: a fried bread base carrying a cold, highly seasoned garnish, served either as a savoury at the end of dinner or as one of several small hors-d'oeuvres dishes at the start. The whole genre depended on a well-stocked professional larder, where a cook could reach for anchovy fillets, capers, and the dried coral saved from a lobster already used for another course. Lobster coral was valued in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century kitchens as both colouring and thickener: sieved and dried it made a scarlet garnish, and pounded with butter it became beurre de homard, the classic finish for lobster sauces.