Crab, Hot
-INGREDIENTS for dish for 3 persons.-1 crab, nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste, 3 oz. of butter, 1/4 lb. of breadcrumbs, 3 tablespoonfuls of vinegar. AVERAGE COST, 1s. 5d.
After having boiled the crab, pick the meat out from the shells, and mix with it the nutmeg and seasoning. Cut up the butter in small pieces and add the breadcrumbs and vinegar. Mix all together, put the whole in the large shell, and brown before the fire or with a salamander.
THE CRAB.
TIME.-1 hour.
CRAYFISH. for if light, it is watery. The average price of crabs vary from 4d. to 2s., according to size.
A Victorian hot dressed crab: cooked crabmeat bound with butter and crumbs, packed back into the shell and browned. The whole thing hinges on the browning, which takes minutes, not the hour the book allots.
- Read the time correctlyThe stated hour most likely covers boiling and picking the crab, which the recipe already assumes is done, rather than the browning. Under a hot grill or broiler the filled shell needs only 5-8 minutes, just long enough to colour the crumbs and heat the meat through.
- SalamanderA salamander was an iron plate on a handle, heated red in the fire and held over a dish to brown the top. A domestic grill or broiler at full heat, with the shell 4-5 inches from the element, does the same job.
- Crab size and yieldOne crab for three people assumes a large cock crab of 2-3 lb in the shell, which gives roughly 8-12 oz of picked meat, brown and white together. A 1 1/2 lb crab serves two at most; two smaller crabs are easier to buy than one giant.
- Choosing the crabThe garbled line about being watery "if light" is the book's advice on selection: a crab should feel heavy for its size. A light one has recently moulted and its shell is full of water rather than meat.
- The crumb ratioA quarter pound of breadcrumbs to one crab is a great deal by modern taste and will bury the meat. Half that, with the rest scattered on top for the crust, keeps it recognisably crab. Use dry white crumbs, not fresh, or the mixture goes pasty.
- VinegarThree tablespoons is a Victorian level of sharpness. The recipe does not specify a type; malt vinegar was the commonest English kitchen vinegar of the period and is the likely intention. Start with one tablespoon, taste, and add more. Lemon juice is a reasonable substitution and closer to current practice.
- NutmegGrate it fresh and use it sparingly, a few rasps for the whole dish. Pre-ground nutmeg from a jar is flatter and it is easy to overdo, at which point the crab tastes of custard.
- The shellScrub the top shell, snap away the thin lip that runs around the underside to the natural line moulded into it, and discard the gills and stomach sac. Wash and dry it before filling; it is being used as an ovenproof dish.
Serving crab back in its own shell is older than Mrs Beeton, the shell doing the work of a dish. The hot version, with butter, crumbs and a browned top, is the same idea as the cold dressed crab of a seaside tea, warmed and made to stretch further; the crumbs are as much economy as texture. The price note is a useful measure of the period's fish trade, with crabs from 4d. to 2s. depending on size. The salamander named here was a real piece of kitchen ironmongery, kept by the range and heated in the coals, and its disappearance is a small marker of the shift from open fires to enclosed ovens with a grill.