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Fried Shad Roe
Parboil and cook shad roe as for Baked Shad Roe. Cut in pieces, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and brush over with lemon juice. Dip in crumbs, egg, and crumbs, fry in deep fat, and drain.
Soft-shell Crabs.
Clean crabs, sprinkle with salt and pepper, dip in crumbs, egg, and crumbs, fry in deep fat, and drain. Being light, they will rise to top of fat, and should be turned while frying. Soft-shell crabs are usually fried. Serve with Sauce Tartare. To Clean a Crab. Lift and fold back the tapering points which are found on each side of the back shell, and remove spongy substance that lies under them. Turn crab on its
Two spring dishes run together on one page: shad roe finished in deep fat, and soft-shell crabs done the same way. Both depend on a well-managed fat kettle and on gentle handling of a fragile ingredient.
- The hinge: don't let the roe burstShad roe is a pair of lobes in a thin membrane that splits and spits if cooked hard. The cross-reference to Baked Shad Roe means the roe is parboiled before it is crumbed and fried; the time and the cooking liquid are given in that recipe, not here, so follow it — in general a bare simmer with a little salt and acid, then drain and cool before cutting. Pricking the membrane in a few places first relieves the pressure.
- "Deep fat" means 375F"Deep fat" -- The book gives no thermometer reading; fat was tested by dropping in a cube of bread and timing how fast it browned. In modern terms something in the region of 350-375F suits crumbed pieces: cooler and the coating soaks, hotter and the crumbs brown before the interior heats through.
- Crumbs, egg, crumbsThis is the standard three-stage coat of the period: dry crumbs first to give the egg something to grip, then beaten egg thinned with a spoonful of water, then crumbs again. Let the breaded pieces sit 10-15 minutes before frying so the coating sets.
- Crumbs are not panko"Crumbs" in this book means fine dry crumbs from stale white bread, sieved. Panko will work but browns paler and coarser than the finish intended.
- Cleaning the crabThe passage is cut off mid-instruction. The full procedure: fold back the pointed flaps on each side of the top shell and pull out the spongy gills beneath, turn the crab over and remove the apron, then cut off the face just behind the eyes and squeeze out the sac. Crabs must be alive until cleaned, and are cooked immediately after.
- Why crabs need turningA soft-shell crab is mostly air and water and floats, so only the submerged half fries. Turn once, roughly 2-3 minutes a side. Expect the fat to spatter sharply — a spider lid or splatter screen is worth having.
- Sourcing shad roeAmerican shad runs are much reduced and several East Coast rivers are closed to shad fishing outright; roe appears at good fish counters for a few weeks in early spring and is sold in pairs. Frozen roe is common and works, though the membrane is more prone to tearing.
- YieldOne pair of shad roe serves two; two soft-shell crabs per person is a normal main course. Tartare sauce, as the book directs, and lemon.
Shad and its roe were the great spring event of the Atlantic seaboard, and Boston kitchens of the 1890s treated the fish as a seasonal calendar marker in the way asparagus was treated. The runs up the Connecticut, Hudson and Delaware were enormous enough that shad was long considered a cheap, even lowly fish, while the roe — richer, scarcer, available only during spawning — was the prized part. Fannie Farmer's page here gives Baked Shad Roe. The soft-shell crabs that follow belong to the same brief-season logic: blue crabs are edible shell and all only in the days after moulting, and both dishes reflect a period when the fish market, not the pantry, decided the menu.