Shrimp Sauce
Mix one pint of shelled fresh shrimps with one-half pint of melted butter in which some mace, cayenne and essence of anchovy have been stirred. Heat all together but do not boil. A little cream will greatly improve the sauce. STEWED AND BAKED APPLES TO SERVE WITH ROAST PORK
A compound butter sauce of the kind that was ladled over boiled fish, and it depends entirely on holding the heat down. The whole thing takes about five minutes once the shrimp are peeled.
- "Melted butter" is a sauce, not a puddleIn English and American cookery of this period, melted butter usually means drawn butter: butter thickened with a little flour and water or fish stock, roughly the consistency of thin cream. Plain clarified butter will work but will separate on standing; a light roux base holds together.
- The measuresA pint of shelled shrimp is about 8 to 10 oz by weight, or two generous cups. Half a pint of melted butter is one cup of finished sauce. The result is around a pint and a half, enough to dress fish for four to six.
- Essence of anchovyA thin bottled anchovy extract, once a staple and now largely gone. Anchovy paste is the nearest modern equivalent: start with a teaspoon whisked into the warm butter and taste before adding more, since the two are not interchangeable spoon for spoon.
- MaceThe outer covering of the nutmeg, sold ground or as blades. A scant quarter teaspoon ground is plenty for a cup of sauce; more and it dominates the shrimp. Nutmeg is a passable stand-in but is sweeter and coarser.
- Do not boil, and mean itThis is the hinge. Above a simmer the butter emulsion breaks and the shrimp seize into rubber. Keep the pan below 180F, or set it over hot water, and pull it off as soon as the shrimp are heated through.
- Cooked or raw shrimpIf the shrimp are already boiled, they need only two or three minutes to warm. If raw, they will turn opaque in the gentle butter in about three to four minutes at that low heat, which is all they should get.
- The creamTwo or three tablespoons stirred in at the end stabilises the sauce as well as softening the cayenne and anchovy. Add it warm, off the direct heat.
- ServingThe traditional partners are boiled or baked white fish, salmon, and turbot. Sauce it at the table; it will not sit on a steam table without separating.
- The stray line at the end"Stewed and Baked Apples to Serve with Roast Pork" is the heading of the next entry, caught by the typesetting. It has nothing to do with the shrimp sauce.
Shrimp sauce belongs to a family of Victorian and Edwardian fish sauces built on drawn butter and pointed with a single strong flavouring: lobster sauce, oyster sauce, anchovy sauce, shrimp sauce, all variations on the same cup of thickened butter. Essence of anchovy, the bottled fish extract that gives this one its depth, was a commercial pantry product on both sides of the Atlantic from the early nineteenth century onward, and it shares an affinity with the same taste for fermented fish seasoning that produced Worcestershire sauce and, further back, Roman garum. The Butterick book was published by a pattern company for a middle-class household audience. Mace, cayenne and a spoonful of cream are the whole vocabulary of the period's fish cookery in miniature.