Prawns
Three-quarters of an ounce of Flour.
Three-quarters of an ounce of Butter.
Seasoning. Half a gill of Fish Stock.
One spoonful of Cream.
What survives here is the binding sauce for a prawn savoury, not the whole method — the prawns themselves are not even quantified. Read it as a ratio and build the dish around it.
- The proportions are a panada, not a pouring sauceEqual weights of flour and butter (about 20 g each) to only 2 1/2 fl oz of stock gives a paste stiff enough to hold chopped prawns in a mound. If you thin it to sauce consistency it will run off the toast.
- Half a gillA gill is 5 fl oz in British measure, so half a gill is 2 1/2 fl oz — a scant third of a cup. Gill values did vary regionally, and a smaller reading would give even less liquid; on any reading the mixture is very thick.
- One spoonful of creamGenuinely ambiguous. A plain "spoonful" in books of this kind may well mean a tablespoon, roughly 15 ml, added at the end to loosen and enrich, but there is no way to be certain from the text.
- Fish stockA light stock from sole or whiting bones, not a dark shellfish bisque base. Prawn shells simmered fifteen minutes in water with a bay leaf and a slice of onion, then strained, are closer to the intended flavour than a commercial fish concentrate, which is usually far saltier.
- Quantity of prawnsNothing is given. As a rough guide this quantity of sauce will bind a few ounces of picked, cooked prawns, enough for a small number of savoury croûtes, but the figure is an estimate and not from the text.
- Cook the roux, then stopTwo minutes over low heat to lose the raw flour, stock in gradually, then the prawns off the heat. Already-cooked prawns reheated in a hot sauce toughen within a minute or two.
- Seasoning the original assumesSavouries of this kind were commonly sharpened with cayenne, a scrape of mace or nutmeg, lemon juice and sometimes anchovy essence. The recipe as printed specifies no seasoning at all.
- ServingSavouries were served hot in very small portions — piled on fingers of fried bread or buttered toast, or in scallop shells with a light crumb and butter topping browned under a hot grill.
The savoury was a distinctly British course, served after the sweet and before dessert at late-Victorian and Edwardian dinners, and often explained as a survival of the gentlemen's habit of taking something salt and pungent with the last of the wine. Prawns, anchovies, cheese, soft roes and devilled bones all appear under the heading, always in small, sharply seasoned quantities. That this entry consists of nothing but a flour-butter-stock-cream ratio may simply mean that the ingredient list has been separated from its method, though it is sometimes suggested that manuals of the period assumed cooks already trained in the sauce work and needed only the proportions.