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Shrimp Sandwiches
Pick one-half pint of shrimps, put them into a mortar with two or three ounces of butter, season with a little salt and cayenne pepper, and pound them to a paste, moisten it with a few drops of tarragon vinegar. Cut some rather thin slices of bread and butter, spread half of them with the paste, fold the remaining half over these, and press them lightly together. Cut the sandwiches into fingers or quarters, arrange them on a folded napkin, or an ornamental dish-paper, garnish with parsley, and serve.
A potted-shrimp paste between thin bread and butter — a buffet and tea sandwich rather than a lunch dish. Nothing here is difficult; the results depend entirely on the shrimp being small, sweet and already cooked.
- "Pick one-half pint of shrimps"Picking means shelling cooked shrimp — with shrimp this small the vein is generally left alone. The half pint is a volume measure of the picked meat, i.e. a cup, which would take somewhere in the region of a pound of shrimp in the shell. Small cold-water shrimp are what the recipe assumes; large prawns tend to pound into a stringier paste.
- Butter proportionTwo to three ounces of butter to a cup of shrimp is a high ratio by modern taste, and deliberately so: the butter is the binder and preservative in the potted-shrimp tradition. Start at two ounces, softened to room temperature, and add more only if the paste will not come together.
- The mortarA food processor does this in twenty seconds, but pulse rather than run it, and stop while a little texture remains. A completely smooth purée tastes of butter and salt and not much of shrimp.
- Tarragon vinegarStill sold, and worth seeking out; it is the one seasoning that keeps the paste from tasting flat. A few drops means a few drops — enough acid to lift the butter, not enough to loosen the paste. Plain white wine vinegar with a bruised tarragon sprig steeped in it for an hour is a fair substitute.
- CayenneCayenne is the usual heat for shellfish in this book, at the level of a pinch — visible flecks and a slight warmth. Season, then taste on a scrap of bread rather than off the spoon, since the butter mutes it when cold.
- The breadThin slices of a close-crumbed white loaf, buttered before the paste goes on so it does not soak through. Chill the assembled sandwiches under a light weight for fifteen minutes before cutting; the paste firms and the fingers cut cleanly.
- YieldHalf a pint of shrimp paste fills about eight sandwiches, giving 32 quarters or fingers — enough for a dozen people at a drinks table.
Shrimp pounded with butter into a paste is the English potted-shrimp method, where the butter is often said to have served first to seal the meat from air and only later become the point of the dish; Oscar Tschirky's version drops the potting and takes it straight to the sandwich tray. The closing directions here are pure hotel service — the folded napkin and the "ornamental dish-paper" are for a platter carried through a room, not a plate set in front of one diner. Tarragon vinegar, now a specialty item, was a standard pantry bottle in 1896.