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Crabs, Manhattan
Hash up together six sound shallots, half a green pepper, the red part of a small carrot, a half bean garlic, two branches parsley, one branch chervil and four branches chives. Place these articles in a frying pan with a half ounce butter and gently fry for ten minutes, occasionally stirring meanwhile. Add a half gill sherry, one tablespoon brandy, one and a half gills tomato sauce and two gills demi-glace. Mix well and let reduce on a brisk fire for ten minutes, then add one and a half pounds of fresh crab-meat flakes. Season with half teaspoon salt, one saltspoon cayenne pepper and half saltspoon ground thyme. Mix well and let cook for ten minutes, evenly divide the preparation into six well-cleaned crab shells, arrange on a dish with a folded napkin, decorate with a little parsley greens and serve.
A crab stew bound with two classic French sauces and served back in the shell. The measurements are in gills and saltspoons, and the crab is cooked far longer than it needs.
- Gills and saltspoonsA gill is half a cup (4 fl oz), so half a gill of sherry is 1/4 cup, one and a half gills of tomato sauce is 3/4 cup, and two gills of demi-glace is 1 cup. A saltspoon is 1/4 teaspoon, so the cayenne is 1/4 teaspoon and the thyme 1/8.
- "Half bean garlic""bean" is Filippini's habitual term for a garlic clove, probably standing in for the French gousse (pod). Half a clove, finely minced, is what is meant, and one small clove will not throw the dish off.
- Demi-glaceA reduced brown veal stock thickened with a brown roux, kept as a standing item in a professional kitchen of this period. A cup of good reduced beef or veal stock, lightly thickened, will stand in; a stock cube dissolved in water will not, since the whole body of the sauce comes from this.
- Six shallots is a lotBulb size varies enormously, so aim for about 1/2 cup once chopped rather than counting bulbs.
- The crab goes in last, brieflyThis is the hinge. Picked crab is already cooked; ten more minutes in the pan shreds the flakes and turns them stringy. Reduce the sauce until it will coat a spoon, then fold the crab in over low heat for two or three minutes just to heat through.
- ChervilRarely stocked fresh. Use a little extra parsley plus a pinch of tarragon, which covers the faint anise note chervil carries.
- The shells"Well-cleaned" means scrubbed and boiled, not merely rinsed; retained crab viscera in a shell will sour. Ceramic gratin dishes or scallop shells serve the same purpose. If you want a browned top, run the filled shells under a hot broiler for a few minutes.
- YieldSix filled shells from a pound and a half of crab, so a first course for six or a light main for three or four.
This comes from Alexander Filippini's The International Cook Book, and it carries the marks of the kind of American hotel and club cooking Filippini worked in — he had long service at Delmonico's in New York, where French technique was applied to whatever the local market supplied. The method is straight out of the French repertoire: an aromatic base of vegetables and herbs softened in butter, moistened with sherry and brandy, then built on tomato and demi-glace. Only the crab and the name are American. Why "Manhattan" is attached here is not recorded; the tomato-versus-cream distinction familiar from clam chowder belongs to a later period and should not be read back into this dish. Serving the mixture back in the shell on a folded napkin was a common restaurant presentation for crab and lobster preparations of the period.