Creamed Lobster
Put on one pint of milk to heat and cut in small pieces one pound of boiled lobster. Gradually melt two tablespoons of butter, and stir into it, when perfectly soft, two tablespoons of flour, one-half teaspoon of salt, one saltspoon of white pepper or paprika, and the juice of one-fourth lemon or one teaspoon of white vinegar. As soon as the mixture is thoroughly blended, add a little of the boiling milk to thin it; stir thoroughly, pour the mixture into the rest of boiling milk, and let the whole cook slowly for five minutes, stirring continually. Then add the lobster, and cook five minutes longer. Some persons prefer a little more salt and pepper in creamed lobster, and to others a level tablespoon of curry-powder will prove an agreeable addition. Sometimes this preparation is placed in buttered scallop shells, sprinkled with fine seasoned and buttered bread and cracker crumbs, and nicely browned in the oven.
A plain white sauce with lobster folded in, and the whole thing hinges on how briefly the lobster stays in it. Everything else is a matter of translating a few old measures.
- The one thing that mattersThe lobster is already cooked. Five more minutes of simmering turns it fibrous and squeaky; fold it in off the heat or over the barest heat and give it two to three minutes, just long enough to warm through.
- A saltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. Use white pepper if you want the sauce to stay pale, paprika if you want colour.
- One pound of lobsterThis most likely means a pound of picked meat rather than a pound of lobster in the shell. Whole lobsters yield only around a fifth to a quarter of their weight in meat, so several will be needed to reach a pound.
- The acid will curdle itThe acid may curdle it -- Lemon juice or vinegar stirred into the roux and then cooked in hot milk can break the sauce. Safer to add it at the very end, off the heat, after the lobster is in.
- Sauce consistencyTwo tablespoons each of butter and flour to a pint of milk gives a thin pouring sauce. For a mixture stiff enough to hold in shells, go to three tablespoons of each.
- Curry powderIf you use the optional tablespoon, stir it into the melted butter with the flour and let it cook a minute. Raw curry powder added to finished sauce tastes dusty.
- Browning in shellsThe recipe gives no temperature, only 'nicely browned in the oven'. A hot oven for about 10 minutes will do it -- long enough to brown the crumbs and no longer, since the filling is already cooked.
- YieldServes four generously over toast points or in patty shells, or six as a first course in scallop shells.
Creamed dishes of this kind were common in American middle-class entertaining around 1900: a butter-and-flour sauce thinned with milk, enriched with something expensive, and served over toast, in pastry cases, or heaped into scallop shells and browned. Butterick's cook book, published by the pattern company as part of its broader household advice business, was aimed at the woman running a household without a French-trained cook, and the recipe reflects that -- a single technique, a short ingredient list, and three suggested variations. The optional curry powder is a small trace of the late Victorian appetite for Anglo-Indian seasoning. Lobster itself had by this date shifted from cheap coastal protein toward a luxury, with canned lobster meat a common substitute in inland homes, and the scallop-shell presentation was one familiar way of making a modest quantity of it look like a course.