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Crab à La Carmen
I good-sized crab 1 teaspoonful tarragon vine- 2 tablespoonfuls olive oil gar I chopped shallot 1 tablespoonful cream 1 teaspoonful chopped pars- 3 tablespoonfuls fish stock ley 1/2 pint (I cup) white sauce 2 tablespoonfuls bread 2 hard cooked egg yolks crumbs Salt and pepper to taste 2 tablespoonfuls chopped cooked chicken Boil the crab, then remove the meat from it. Put the oil into a casserole, add the crab meat, the shallot, and parsley; stir over the fire until quite hot; then add the bread crumbs, vinegar, chicken, cream, stock, and seasonings; fill some flange ramequins very full with the mixture, heaping them in the center; pour over each some of the white sauce, and sprinkle over the top the sieved hard cooked yolks of eggs.
Stand them in a pan containing a little boiling water on the stove until thoroughly hot, then serve. 1/2 lbs. cooked fish
The ingredient column has come through the scanner interleaved, so read it as pairs: 2 tablespoonfuls olive oil, 1 chopped shallot, 1 teaspoonful chopped parsley, 2 tablespoonfuls bread crumbs, 1 teaspoonful tarragon vinegar, 2 tablespoonfuls chopped cooked chicken, 1 tablespoonful cream, 3 tablespoonfuls fish stock, 1 cup white sauce, 2 hard-cooked egg yolks, salt and pepper. The trailing "1/2 lbs. cooked fish" is a stray line, most likely a note that about half a pound of any cooked white fish can stand in for the crab.
- The hinge: keep the filling looseThe crumbs, cream and stock go in off the heat of a hard boil — the mixture should be warm and moist, not fried dry. If it stiffens in the pan it will pack into the ramekins as a paste and the white sauce will sit on top like a lid.
- "Casserole" means the panHere the casserole is used directly over the flame — the recipe says to stir over the fire in it — rather than as a baked dish. Any heavy sauté pan or small saucepan does the same work here.
- Flange ramequinsSmall shallow ramekins with a projecting rim. Ordinary 4 oz ramekins are fine; the rim is a convenience, not a requirement.
- One good-sized crabA 2 lb crab yields roughly 6–8 oz of picked meat, depending on the species. Buying a half pound of pasteurised lump crab is a fair substitute; drain it well, since packed crab carries more liquid than freshly picked.
- Tarragon vinegarStill sold, but easily made by steeping a few tarragon sprigs in white wine vinegar for a week. A teaspoon is meant to cut the cream, so do not swap in plain distilled vinegar without reducing the amount.
- The white sauceA cup of standard béchamel — about 2 tablespoons each butter and flour to a cup of milk — seasoned and thick enough to coat. A plain milk-and-flour white sauce is mild on its own; a little of the fish stock in place of some milk improves it.
- Finishing in a water bath on the stoveStanding the filled ramekins in the little boiling water the recipe calls for heats them through without browning or curdling the sauce. No time is given; the crab is already cooked, and long heating makes it stringy and watery.
- YieldProbably about four small ramekins as a first course, or two as a light supper dish; the recipe gives no number. Sieve the egg yolks over just before serving.
Casserole cookery had a vogue in English and American kitchens in the years before the First World War, as fireproof earthenware came into wider domestic use and publishers issued volumes devoted to it. The dishes in such books lean heavily on the French restaurant repertoire of the day: cooked shellfish bound with crumbs and cream, mounted in individual ramekins, masked with white sauce and dusted with sieved egg yolk — a garnish a French kitchen would call *mimosa*. "À la Carmen" is not traceable to a particular person. The 2 tablespoonfuls of chopped cooked chicken stretched the more expensive crab.