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Lobster and Oyster Ragout
¾ cup oyster liquor ¾ cup cream ¾ teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon pepper Few drops onion juice.
Few grains cayenne 1 pint oysters parboiled ¾ cup lobster dice 1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley 1½ tablespoons Sauterne Make a sauce of first eight ingredients. Add oysters, lobster dice, wine, and parsley.
Stuffed Lobster à la Béchamel 2 lb. lobster 1½ cups milk Bit of bay leaf 3 tablespoons butter 3 tablespoons flour ½ teaspoon salt Few grains cayenne Slight grating nutmeg 1 teaspoon chopped parsley 1 teaspoon lemon juice Yolks 2 eggs 1/2 cup buttered crumbs
A rich creamed shellfish dish from Fannie Farmer's chapter on shellfish, meant to be spooned over toast points or into pastry shells. The fractions in the printed measurements need reading with care, and the oysters need far less cooking than the word "parboiled" suggests.
- The fractionsThe measures written as "34 cup" and "34 teaspoon" are three-quarters of a cup and three-quarters of a teaspoon; "14 teaspoon" is a quarter teaspoon. Read them that way throughout.
- "Make a sauce"In this book that phrase means a white sauce: melt butter, stir in an equal volume of flour, cook a moment without browning, then add the oyster liquor and cream gradually and season. Note that the direction reads "first eight ingredients" while only six are printed above it: the butter and flour lines, with their quantities, have dropped out of the text here, so the amounts must be supplied by the cook.
- OystersParboiling here means dropping them into their own hot liquor only until the edges ruffle, about one to two minutes. Anything approaching a true boil, or prolonged simmering, turns them tough and shrunken.
- Oyster liquorThis is the liquid in the shucked oyster container, strained through cheesecloth or a fine sieve to catch shell grit. If your oysters yield less than 3/4 cup, top it up with bottled clam juice rather than water.
- Lobster diceCooked lobster meat cut in half-inch cubes; 3/4 cup is the yield of roughly a 1 to 1 1/4 lb lobster, or about 5 oz of picked meat. Add it at the very end and only warm it through, since it is already cooked.
- Onion juiceGrate a peeled onion on a fine grater and press the pulp in a cloth or sieve. A few drops is genuinely all that is wanted; the point is a background savor, not onion flavor.
- SauterneThe name points to Sauternes, the sweet white wine of Bordeaux, though in American books of this period "Sauterne" was also used for domestic white wine sold under that label. A dry white or a dry sherry works and is closer to modern taste; the wine is added at the end, with the oysters, lobster and parsley.
- YieldThe recipe gives none; the quantities suggest roughly 3 to 4 cups, enough for three or four over toast, in patty shells, or in ramekins. It is best eaten at once, as the oysters firm up on reheating.
The shellfish chapters of Boston cookbooks of this period reflect a city into which oysters and lobster were both brought in quantity by rail and coastal boat, oysters cheap enough to buy by the quart. Ragout is borrowed from the French kitchen, where it means a dish of pieces of meat or fish in sauce, and American cookbooks of the period used it loosely for a well-sauced mixture served in a shell, a ramekin or on toast, the sort of thing that could be plated as a first course or made in a chafing dish. The splash of Sauterne belongs to the same borrowed vocabulary, a small quantity of wine added at the last moment.