Butter, Lobster
INGREDIENTS.- Lobster coral, fresh butter, salt and cayenne.
Rub down in a mortar the coral and add to it the butter, blending well together till a deep red colour is obtained; add cayenne and salt to taste, put it into pots and tie over closely.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Butter, Maitre d'Hotel (for putting into Broiled Fish just before it is sent to table). INGREDIENTS.-1/4 lb. of butter, 2 dessertspoonfuls of minced parsley, salt and pepper to taste, the juice of 1 large by two of the corners to an iron hook in ! lemon. AVERAGE COST, 6d. Fresh Butter.
Brittany Butter.
Hens' Eggs.
Turkeys' Eggs.
Gorgonzola Cheese.
Cream Cheese.
Camembert Cheese.
Bondon Cheese.
Ball of Butter.
Ducks' Eggs.
Curled Butter.
Cheddar Cheese.
Pat of Butter.
Cheshire Cheese.
Stilton Cheese.
Yorkshire Cheese.
Butter, Eggs and Cheese.
BUTTER, MELTED.
Work the above ingredients well together, and let them be thoroughly mixed with a wooden spoon. If this is used as a sauce, it may be poured either under or over the meat or fish it is intended to be served with.
Note.-4 tablespoonfuls of Béchamel, 2 tablespoonfuls of white stock, with 2 ounces of the above maître d'hôtel butter stirred into it, and just allowed to simmer for 1 minute, will be found an excellent hot maître d'hôtel sauce.
Two compound butters run together here, with the caption list from a colour plate of butter, eggs and cheeses caught between them by the scanner. Ignore the stray line about iron hooks and the roll-call of Gorgonzola and Cheshire; the working text is the coral butter, the maitre d'hotel butter, and the note on turning the latter into a hot sauce.
- CoralThe coral is the roe of a hen lobster, dark green when raw and brilliant scarlet once cooked. Use coral from a lobster that has already been boiled, which is what the deep red colour called for here implies.
- Working it smoothA mortar is the period tool, but the coral needs to be genuinely smooth or the butter will be gritty and speckled rather than an even deep red. Pound it to a paste, then press it through a fine sieve before creaming it into softened butter.
- ProportionsNone are given for the coral butter. The coral of one lobster to 4 oz (115 g) of butter gives a strong colour and flavour; more butter dilutes it toward pink.
- A pound of butter is a lotThe maitre d'hotel quantity, 1 lb (450 g), is a large batch. For domestic use scale to 4 oz butter, 1 teaspoon minced parsley, and the juice of a quarter lemon, and adjust to taste.
- DessertspoonfulA Victorian dessertspoon is 2 teaspoons, so the 2 dessertspoonfuls of parsley are about 4 teaspoons, a little over a tablespoon loosely packed.
- Salted or fresh butter"Fresh butter" means unsalted. If you use salted butter, hold back the added salt until the parsley and lemon are in and you have tasted.
- Potting and keeping"Put it into pots and tie over closely" describes a larder, not a sealed preserve. Both butters are perishable: keep them covered in the refrigerator for up to five days, or roll in parchment and freeze for three months, slicing off coins as needed.
- The hot sauce noteBeeton's variant, 4 tablespoons bechamel and 2 of white stock with 2 oz of the maitre d'hotel butter, is only allowed to simmer for a minute. Boil it hard and the emulsion breaks and the parsley dulls.
- CostThe 6d. average cost is Victorian money for the maitre d'hotel butter as given, and tells you only what butter and parsley were worth then.
Compound butters were the Victorian cook's shortcut to a finished sauce: a spoonful dropped onto hot fish melted into something rich and seasoned without a saucepan. Maitre d'hotel butter takes its name from the household steward or hotel manager, the maitre d'hotel, and it is about as simple a dressing as a kitchen can make: butter, parsley and lemon. Lobster butter, or beurre de homard, had a different job: the coral is one of the few natural scarlets available to a nineteenth-century kitchen, and cooks used it to tint and enrich lobster sauces, fish soups and cold buffet dishes. Both entries sit in Beeton's butter, eggs and cheese section, which in the illustrated editions carried a colour plate of butter pats, curls, hens' and ducks' eggs and a parade of named cheeses. That plate's caption list has been swept into the middle of this text by the scanner, a reminder of how much of Beeton was reference material as much as instruction.