Lobsters, to Boil
INGREDIENTS. -Lobsters, 1/4 lb. of salt to each gallon of water. AVERAGE COST, 1s. to 3s. each.
Buy the lobsters alive and choose those that are heavy and full of motion, which is an indication of their freshness. When the shell is incrusted, it is a sign they are old: medium-sized lobsters are the best. Have ready a stewpan of boiling water, salted in the above proportion; put in the lobster head downwards and keep it boiling quickly from 20 minutes to 3/4 hour, according to its size and do not forget to skim well. If it boils too long, the meat becomes thready and if not done enough, the spawn is not red: this must be obviated by great attention. Rub the shell over with a little butter or sweet oil, which wipe off again.
TIME.-Small lobster, 20 minutes to SESAONABLE all the year, but best from hour ; large ditto, 1/2 to 3/4 hour.
March to October.
A plain boiled lobster in the Victorian manner, useful mainly for the buying advice and the salt ratio. The cooking times, however, belong to an era that had no thermometer and no qualms about overcooked shellfish.
- The time is far too longTwenty minutes to three-quarters of an hour will give exactly the "thready" meat the recipe warns against. Current practice is roughly 8-10 minutes for a 1 lb lobster from the moment the water returns to the boil, plus about 3-4 minutes for each additional pound; the tail meat should read 135-140F at its thickest point.
- Salt proportionA quarter pound of salt to the gallon is about 4 oz (110 g); to an imperial gallon (4.5 litres) that works out at roughly 25 g per litre, well salted but below the salinity of seawater. Use coarse or kosher salt; fine table salt measured by weight is equivalent but by volume is much saltier.
- VesselA "stewpan" here simply means a deep pot with a lid, large enough that the lobster is fully submerged and the water returns to the boil quickly once it goes in.
- Killing the lobsterPlunging a live lobster head-first into boiling water is still done, but much modern guidance suggests chilling it in the freezer for 20-30 minutes to sedate it first, or spiking the head behind the eyes with a heavy knife immediately before it goes in the pot.
- ChoosingThe advice holds: pick a lobster that is heavy for its size and lively, and pass over a heavily encrusted, barnacled shell. A newly moulted lobster feels light and its shell gives under thumb pressure, meaning less meat inside.
- "Until the spawn is red"The coral (roe) of a hen lobster turns from dark greenish-black to bright orange-red when cooked through, which was the period's doneness test. It is a reasonable cue, but it lags behind the tail meat - by the time deep coral is scarlet the tail can already be past its best.
- The butter rubPurely cosmetic. Rubbing the cooled shell with a trace of butter or a neutral oil and wiping it off gives the gloss expected on a cold lobster sent to table whole.
- Cost and yieldThe "1s. to 3s. each" is a period price and has no modern meaning. Allow about 1 to 1 1/4 lb of whole lobster per person as a main course, rather less if it is being dressed or used in a salad.
Boiled lobster was a staple of the Victorian cold table, and Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management and its later abridgements treat it as raw material rather than a finished dish: the same page-neighbours include lobster cutlets, lobster salad, lobster patties and buttered lobster, all of which begin with a boiled bird-in-hand. British lobster fisheries along the Scottish, Cornish and Norfolk coasts, combined with the railways that reached them from the 1840s, widened and quickened the inland supply of live lobsters - which had already been carried to London by well-smack - which is why the book can assume its reader is buying one alive and judging its weight in the hand. The seasonal note - best from March to October - reflects both the fishery and the moult: lobsters that have recently cast their shells yield thin, watery meat, and the encrusted shell the recipe tells you to avoid signals an animal that has gone too long the other way.