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Little Neck Clams, Desire
Open thirty-six very fresh little neck clams, and drop them in a small saucepan with their liquor. Add a half pint water, place on the fire, and as soon as they come to a boil; strain and save the liquor. Finely chop the clams and keep on a plate. Heat a half ounce butter in a small saucepan, add three finely chopped shallots and six finely chopped canned mushrooms and fry for five minutes; then add three tablespoons flour, mix well, pour in two gills of the clam liquor and one gill cream. Mix until it comes to a boil, then add the chopped clams, one chopped bean garlic, a half teaspoon freshly chopped parsley, half teaspoon chopped chervil, one tablespoon Worcestershire sauce, two saltspoons salt, and one saltspoon each cayenne pepper and grated nutmeg. Mix well and let cook for ten minutes, add two egg yolks, sharply mix while heating for five minutes, remove, place the force in a bowl and let get cold. Thoroughly wash and dry thirty-six of the half shells, fill them up with the preparation and neatly smooth the surface with a knife. Carefully wet the surface of each with beaten egg, then turn them in bread crumbs, lay in a frying basket, and fry in boiling fat for six minutes. Remove, dress on a dish with a folded napkin, decorate with six quarters lemon and a little parsley greens and serve.
A stuffed-and-fried clam shell in the grand-hotel manner: a thick clam béchamel set firm, packed back into the shells, breaded and deep-fried. Nothing here is difficult, but the filling has to be cold and stiff or the shells empty themselves into the fat.
- Chill the force properlyThe mixture is essentially a panada thickened with flour and yolks; it must be refrigerated until genuinely firm, several hours or overnight, before it is filled into the shells. Warm or soft filling will slump off during frying and the crumb coat will slide.
- Gills and saltspoonsA gill is half a cup, so two gills of clam liquor is one cup and one gill of cream is half a cup. A saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, making two saltspoons salt and a quarter teaspoon each of cayenne and nutmeg.
- "One chopped bean garlic"This is a clove of garlic; 'bean of garlic' is Filippini's usual phrasing, probably an anglicising of the French gousse d'ail. One clove for thirty-six shells is a whisper; the dish is meant to taste of clam, not garlic.
- Clams and their liquorThirty-six littlenecks yield perhaps a cup and a half of chopped meat. Strain the liquor through cloth to catch grit, and taste it before salting the sauce, since clam liquor is already saline.
- Only heat the clams enough to open themOnly heat the clams enough to release their liquor -- They are already shucked, so bringing them to a boil is about drawing out the juice, not opening them. Take the pan off as soon as it boils; they get another ten minutes in the sauce and six in the fryer, and littlenecks turn to rubber quickly.
- Canned mushroomsCommon in professional kitchens of the period and still perfectly usable, but drain and dry them well. Six small button mushrooms, sautéed until their water has gone, give the same effect with more flavour.
- ChervilRarely stocked fresh; if unavailable, use a little tarragon plus extra parsley rather than dried chervil, which tastes of nothing.
- "Boiling fat"The book gives no temperature; in modern terms this is deep fat in the usual frying range, roughly 350-375F. Six minutes at that heat is a long time for something already cooked, so watch the colour and pull the shells at deep gold. Make sure the shells are bone dry before filling, since trapped water spits violently in the fryer.
- YieldThirty-six shells serve six as a first course, six apiece, which matches the six lemon quarters called for in the dressing.
The International Cook Book came from Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York, and its habit of attaching a personal name to a garnish or preparation — Desire, Bellevue, and dozens of others — reflects a kitchen culture where dishes were christened for patrons, actresses and passing occasions rather than for any technique they contained. The clams themselves are local: littlenecks take their name from Little Neck Bay on the north shore of Long Island, and by the late nineteenth century they were the standard small hard clam of the New York table, eaten raw on the half shell or, as here, cooked, minced and returned to their shells in a rich sauce. Stuffing a shell with a bound forcemeat and frying or gratinating it is a French restaurant device applied to an American shellfish, which is more or less the whole argument of Filippini's book.