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Crabs, Ravigote
Place one and a half pounds fresh crab meat flakes in a bowl, season with a teaspoon salt, a saltspoon cayenne pepper, a teaspoon French mustard and half teaspoon freshly chopped parsley; add one finely chopped hard boiled egg, three tablespoons vinegar, a tablespoon oil and mix well. Neatly clean six hard crab shells, then evenly divide the preparation in the shells, give them a nice, dome form and evenly spread a ravigote over them. Cut four anchovies in oil into four lengthwise strips each, arrange over the crabs, dress on a dish with a folded napkin, decorate with a little parsley and serve.
A cold dressed crab, assembled rather than cooked, from the era when a chilled first course was expected to arrive back in its own shell. Everything hinges on the ravigote, which the recipe assumes you already have.
- The ravigote is not in the recipeCold ravigote in this period may mean either a vinaigrette sharpened with capers, shallot, chervil, tarragon, parsley and chives, or, in American practice, a mayonnaise worked with the same herbs and capers and loosened with vinegar; the hot version is a velouté or vinegar reduction finished the same way. Either cold form will do here. Something on the order of a cup should cover six shells.
- SaltspoonPeriod measure tables put the saltspoon at about a quarter teaspoon, though some reckon it as little as an eighth. Even a quarter teaspoon of cayenne in a pound and a half of crab is assertive but not unreasonable; start with half that if you are unsure of your pepper.
- French mustardA prepared, wine- or vinegar-based smooth mustard, as distinguished from harsh English dry powder; Dijon is the nearest modern stand-in.
- The dressing is sharpThree tablespoons vinegar to one of oil is the reverse of a modern vinaigrette. It is deliberate — the ravigote spread on top carries the fat — but if you are serving the crab without a proper mayonnaise-based sauce, bring the oil up to two or three tablespoons.
- Crab meatThe recipe asks for flake meat, already cooked. Squeeze out excess liquid and pick through for cartilage before seasoning, or the mixture will not hold a dome.
- The shellsScrub the top shells, boil them a few minutes and dry them. Modern equivalents are ramekins, scallop shells or small gratin dishes; the dome shape matters more than the vessel.
- AnchoviesFour fillets cut lengthwise into four strips gives sixteen strips, so roughly two or three crossed over each shell. Oil-packed fillets, patted dry.
- Keep it coldAssemble no more than an hour ahead and refrigerate. Picked crab and a raw-egg mayonnaise both go off quickly at room temperature.
- Yield and serviceSix shells, a first course for six. The "folded napkin" is a linen napkin pleated on the platter to stop the shells sliding — decorative, and easily replaced by a bed of crushed ice or shredded lettuce.
Ravigote takes its name from the French ravigoter, to revive or perk up — a sauce meant to wake up bland cold protein. Versions appear in French cookery from the eighteenth century onward, in a hot velouté-based form and a cold form built on vinaigrette or, later, on mayonnaise thick with green herbs and capers. Crab ravigote appears to have entered American hotel and restaurant cooking with the French-trained chefs who dominated it, and it remains a standing item in New Orleans and along the Chesapeake. Serving the meat back in a scrubbed shell on a folded napkin belongs to the same period logic that returned other shellfish to their own shells at table. The recipe's silence about the sauce itself is typical of the genre — a book like this expects its reader to turn to the sauce chapter, and a professional kitchen to have a batch already made.