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Lobster Rissoles
607. Extract the meat of a boiled lobster, mince it fine as possible, and mix with it the coral pounded smooth, and some yolks of hardboiled eggs pounded also. Season it with cayenne pepper, powdered mace, and a very little salt. Make a batter of beaten egg, milk, and flour. To each egg allow two large tea-spoonfuls of milk, and a large tea-spoonful of flour. Beat the batter well, and then mix the lobster
A Victorian potted-lobster mixture bound with a thin egg batter and fried in spoonfuls. The proportions are given per egg, so the quantity scales to however much lobster meat you have.
- The batter is very thinTwo teaspoons of milk and one of flour per egg makes a loose binder, not a coating batter. It should just hold the minced meat together in a spoonful; add flour a little at a time if the mixture will not keep its shape in the pan.
- CoralThe coral is the roe of a hen lobster, dark green when raw and turning coral-red on boiling. Lobster bought today may well come without any; the rissoles work without it, though they lose the pink colour and some depth. The pounded yolk supplies some of the same richness.
- MacePowdered mace is the ground aril of the nutmeg, warmer and less sweet than nutmeg itself. Use it sparingly, about a quarter teaspoon to a cup of lobster meat, and buy it ground unless you have a spice grinder that will handle the blades.
- Mince fine as possibleDo this with a knife, not a food processor. Cooked lobster turns to paste in seconds under a blade, and the rissoles then have no texture at all.
- FryingThe recipe breaks off before the cooking is described. Rissoles of this type were generally dropped by the spoonful into hot shallow fat and turned once, cooking only until set and lightly coloured; the lobster is already cooked, so you are only setting the egg.
- SaltThe instruction to use very little salt is sound: boiled lobster is already saline, and cayenne plus mace do most of the seasoning work. Taste the mixture before it goes near the pan.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities beyond the per-egg proportions. As a rough guide, the meat of a small lobster with two eggs' worth of batter will make perhaps a dozen small rissoles.