Shrimp Sauce

A Victorian fish sauce built on "butter melted" — the standard English thickened butter sauce, not simply melted butter. The whole point is that the shrimp barely cook.

• "Butter melted thick and smooth"In this period "melted butter" meant a butter sauce lightly thickened with flour, whisked into water or shrimp liquor and simmered until it coats a spoon, rather than plain melted butter. Proportions varied from book to book; the recipe gives none. It should be pourable, not pasty.
• One boil onlyThe hinge of the recipe. The shrimps are already cooked, and "give them one boil" means bring the sauce back to a bare simmer and take it off. Anything longer turns them tough and squeaks them against the teeth.
• Picked shrimpsThe recipe does not say what kind; in an English book of this date these would most likely be the small brown shrimp, sold cooked and shelled. Cooked, peeled cold-water shrimp are the nearest supermarket equivalent; large warm-water prawns are the wrong texture and sweetness.
• The shell stockDo use the second method. Simmer the shells in a little water, strain, and build the sauce on that liquid; the flavour is deeper, and the recipe is honest that you then need fewer shrimps.
• Lemon lastThe recipe adds the juice after the boil; adding it off the heat is safest, as acid stirred into a hot flour-thickened butter sauce over the flame may thin it.
• Salt and seasoningThe recipe specifies no seasoning at all; the shrimp liquor will already be salty, so taste before adding anything. Mace and cayenne appear in some other period shrimp sauces if you want to season it.
• Yield and servingThe recipe gives no quantities or serving note. Sauces of this kind were served with boiled or baked white fish.