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Curried Lobster, Mcwade
Heat a tablespoon butter in a saucepan, add one finely chopped onion, one ditto green pepper, two ditto shallots and the red part of a medium carrot. Stir all well while browning for five minutes; then add two medium-sized live lobsters of two pounds each, cut into one-inch pieces, shells and all; mix well. Cover the pan and cook for ten minutes, or until it has obtained a good red colour, then add one medium chopped, sound apple, one sprig bay leaf, one saltspoon thyme, one teaspoon chopped parsley, half bean crushed garlic. Season with one and a half teaspoons salt, one saltspoon cayenne pepper and one teaspoon curry powder, adding two medium peeled and crushed red tomatoes and pour in one and a half gills white wine. Mix well, cover the pan and let reduce for twenty minutes. Dress a boiled rice crown shape around the hot dish. Pour the lobster in the centre of the dish and serve. BOILED RICE, 'MALAY," FOR CURRIES Carefully wash half pound good rice in three fresh waters. Drain well on a sieve. Have plenty of boiling water in a pan with a teaspoon salt. Plunge the rice into it, gently mix with a wooden spoon and cook till about three-quarters done, that is, twelve minutes. Drain well, then place in a colander and lay in a rather slow oven for ten minutes, or until it is nicely dry, leaving the oven door open meanwhile and taking care to mix it frequently with a fork to prevent the rice from sticking together; in other words, the grains should be separated. Use as required.
A restaurant-style lobster curry in the French manner — shells left on for flavour, wine rather than coconut milk, and only a teaspoon of curry powder in the whole pan. A few of the measures need translating.
- The hinge: cut the lobster raw, cook it in the shellThe shells are what colour and flavour the sauce, and the ten-minute covered stage is there to turn them red and release that flavour into the butter. Do not substitute pre-cooked lobster meat; it will be dry rubber by the time the sauce has reduced.
- Killing the lobstersTwo 2-lb live lobsters are meant to be dispatched and sectioned immediately before they go in the pan. Sever the head lengthwise through the cross-mark behind the eyes with the point of a heavy knife, then cut the body and claws into one-inch pieces. Discard the gravel sac; the green tomalley and any coral can go into the pan.
- Gills and saltspoonsA gill is half a cup, so one and a half gills of white wine is about 3/4 cup (180 ml). A saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon — that applies to both the thyme and the cayenne.
- "Half bean crushed garlic""bean" here appears to stand for a clove, so roughly half a clove. "The red part of a medium carrot" is usually taken to mean the outer orange flesh, pared away from the paler woody core.
- The curry powderOne teaspoon for four pounds of lobster is a period-appropriate whisper. If you want it to read as a curry, use a tablespoon and stir it into the hot butter and vegetables for thirty seconds before the liquid goes in, so the spices bloom rather than taste raw.
- Watch the reductionTwenty minutes covered will overcook the tail meat. Lift the claw and tail pieces out after about eight minutes, let the sauce and shells reduce for the remaining time, then return the meat to warm through for a minute before serving.
- The rice, and "a rather slow oven"The book gives no temperatures; a slow oven is generally taken as somewhere in the range of 250-325F (120-160C), with the door propped open as instructed. Twelve minutes of boiling plus ten in the oven suits long-grain rice; the point is dry, separate grains for a ring mould, not tender rice, so undercook the boil deliberately.
- Yield and serviceNo yield is given; four pounds of lobster with half a pound of rice would plausibly serve four. Everyone will be picking meat out of shell, so put out crackers, picks and finger bowls, and serve the sauce with a spoon rather than expecting it to cling.
Filippini's International Cook Book is full of dishes carrying a surname — a patron, a colleague, sometimes a fellow chef — a habit associated with the Delmonico's kitchens where he made his career, and "Mcwade" is more likely one of those dedications than a place or a style. The recipe itself shows how curry reached the fashionable American dining room by way of the French repertoire rather than through Indian cooking directly: here a mirepoix browned in butter, apple and tomato for sweetness and body, white wine for acidity, and curry powder used as a single seasoning among many. The companion rice, labelled "Malay," is finished by drying in a slow oven — a method that turns up in Anglo-French cookery writing of the period, and one that does produce separate grains.