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Fish or Poissons (G teau or Pain de homard)
Gâteau, or Pain, de homard is a mould of lobster forcemeat. Timbale moulds of this forcemeat may be served cold with salad and Mayonnaise sauce as Timbales de homard en Mayon. naise.
Petits pains de homard à la Hollandaise are little moulds or cakes of lobster, served with Hollandaise sauce. Quenelles de homard à la Russe are quenelles of lobster served with horseradish sauce. Served with Hollandaise or Mayonnaise sauce, they are called à la Belle Vue.
MUSSELS.
Moules à la poulette are cooked in butter with chives and parsley, and served in the sauce with yolks of eggs. à la Villeroi are masked with Villeroi sauce, breadcrumbed and fried. au gras-stewed with bacon, stock, flour, mushrooms, etc. Coquilles de moules-scalloped; served in scallopshells. SCALLOPS.
Pétoncles en coquilles are scalloped and served in the shells.
OYSTERS.
Huîtres à la Villeroi. Large oysters, each coated with Villeroi sauce, breadcrumbed and fried.
Huîtres au Parmesan-browned with breadcrumbs, grated Parmesan, chopped parsley, and wine. en papillotes-rolled in oval-shaped pieces of a paste made of mashed potatoes, flour and butter, and baked. à la Diable are devilled-broiled, seasoned with butter, lemon juice and cayenne. Slices of brown bread and butter are served with them. à l'Américaine are breadcrumbed and fried. à la Virginie are breadcrumbed and broiled; served with tomatoes and a brown sauce.
Ragoût aux huîtres-stewed with vegetables, butter, flour, etc. Served in the sauce with yolks of eggs.
Coquilles aux huîtres-scalloped and served in scallop-shells.
Petits pains aux huîtres - stewed with breadcrumbs and butter, and baked in very small rolls, from which the crumb has been scooped out.
Croûtes aux huîtres - pounded with cream and spread on small pieces of toast.
Andouillettes aux huîtres are small oyster sausages, made with suet, breadcrumbs, etc.
Bouchées aux huîtres are small oyster patties.
Croquettes aux huîtres are croquettes of oysters, breadcrumbed and fried.
Kromeskys aux huîtres are small pieces of oyster croquette preparation wrapped in thin slices of bacon, dipped in batter and fried.
Rissoles aux huîtres are made of the same preparation folded in paste, breadcrumbed and fried. With the addition of chopped truffles, they are called Rissoles à la Hollandaise.
Timbale aux huîtres is a steamed or baked timbale mould of oyster preparation. It may be served with white or Cardinal sauce.
Crépinettes aux huîtres are little fried oyster cakes. They may be served à la Hollandaise, or à la Tartare, with Dutch or Tartare sauce.
Beignets aux huîtres are oyster fritters.
Oysters can also be curried, or dressed in a soufflé, a vol-au-vent, or an omelette.
Lobster, mussels, scallops and then a long run of oysters. Almost every dish here is shellfish and almost every one of them is cooked, which is the reverse of how the same ingredients are treated now.
- En papillotes is not parchmentOn this page it means the oysters are rolled in an oval of paste made from mashed potato, flour and butter, and baked. The modern en papillote, a paper parcel, is a different thing wearing the same name. Read the line, not the term.
- A loaf of lobsterGâteau or pain de homard is lobster pounded to a forcemeat, bound and baked in a mould. That anybody would pound lobster into a loaf and stretch it with crumbs and cream says everything about what it cost relative to the labour of the kitchen. The arithmetic has since reversed completely.
- The oyster listDevilled, crumbed and fried, browned with Parmesan, scalloped, curried, made into sausages, croquettes, fritters, patties and soup. Oysters are being used as a cheap bulk ingredient here, and a page like this is out of reach at present prices rather than at present skill.
- VilleroiA cooked oyster is coated in a very thick white sauce, left to set hard in the cold, then crumbed and fried. The technique has no domestic survival and it exists for a precise reason: it lets a wet thing be deep-fried without weeping into the fat.
- MusselsThe poulette and au gras treatments assume a cook facing grit, beard and sand, which is most of the old instruction about mussels. Rope-grown mussels are sold clean, so the work now comes down to pulling the beards and throwing out any that stay shut after cooking.
- KromeskysA croquette mixture wrapped in a thin slice of bacon, dipped in batter and fried. It is the same preparation as the rissole three lines below, folded in pastry instead, which is how most of this chapter works: one mixture, several wrappers, several names.
Shells did double duty on this table. The coquilles and pétoncles entries describe a serving vessel as much as a dish, the scallop shell washed and sent up again with something else inside it. What the chapter as a whole records is a coast and a railway: oysters, mussels, scallops, lobster, prawns and shrimps arriving in enough quantity to be pounded, minced, curried and made into sausages, so that the kitchen’s problem is not getting them but finding thirty things to do with them. Nothing on this page is served raw. Every one of these creatures goes through heat, often twice, and is then disguised in forcemeat, pastry, batter or bacon — the opposite of the modern instinct to serve shellfish as nearly untouched as possible.