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Lobster and Oyster Filling
(For Patties or Vol-au-Vent) 1 pint oysters 1/4 cup butter 1¼ lb. lobster ½ cup flour 1½ cups cold water 3/4 cup cream 1 stalk celery
This entry is an ingredient list without a method, and the figures have suffered in transcription. What follows is what the quantities almost certainly mean and how a filling of this type behaves.
- The quantitiesThe printed page gives 1¼ lb. lobster and ½ cup flour, which is what our text now reads. Half a cup of flour to a quarter cup of butter is a stiff roux, so add the 1½ cups water and 3/4 cup cream gradually and expect a thick binding sauce rather than a pouring one.
- No method is givenThe usual pattern for such a filling is: melt the butter, cook the flour in it, add the water and cream to make a thick white sauce, then fold in the shellfish. The recipe does not say whether the celery is meant to flavour the liquid and be removed or to go into the finished filling.
- Use the oyster liquorDrain the pint of oysters; their liquor can be used in place of some of the water, though the list as printed calls for cold water only.
- The hinge: how long the oysters cookOysters need only to heat until their edges ruffle, well under two minutes in hot sauce. Held at a simmer they shrink and turn to rubber, and the filling weeps liquid into the pastry.
- LobsterThe 1 1/4 lb most likely refers to a lobster in the shell, which yields roughly 4 to 5 oz of picked meat. If buying cooked lobster meat by weight, buy about that figure rather than 1 1/4 lb.
- The celeryOne stalk can be simmered in the liquid and lifted out, which suits a smooth filling; the recipe itself does not say how it is to be used.
- Consistency and yieldA filling for patty shells or vol-au-vent must be noticeably thicker than a pouring sauce or it will soak the pastry. This quantity fills about eight to ten individual patty shells, or one large vol-au-vent case.
Puff-paste cases were a standard vehicle for a made dish at a turn-of-the-century American luncheon or supper. A vol-au-vent is a large raised puff-paste case, and patties are its individual version; the name is traditionally glossed as "flight in the wind," for the lightness of the pastry. Oysters were then cheap and abundant along the Atlantic coast and sold by the pint of shucked meat with their liquor, which is why they appear here as a bulk ingredient alongside the far costlier lobster. The recipe is given as a bare ingredient list, with no method.