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Shrimps with Cream
Shell one and a half pounds cooked shrimps and place them in a saucepan with one gill milk, one and a half gills cream, two tablespoons sherry, half teaspoon salt, one saltspoon cayenne and one saltspoon grated nutmeg, lightly mix, and boil ten minutes. Knead on a plate an ounce butter with a tablespoon flour and add it, little by little, to the shrimps, lightly mixing while adding, cook two minutes longer, pour into a deep hot dish and serve.
A creamed shrimp in the Delmonico manner, thickened at the end with kneaded butter and flour. The one thing to change is the ten-minute boil.
- The hinge: do not boil the shrimpThe shrimp are already cooked; ten minutes at a boil turns them to erasers. Simmer the milk, cream, sherry and seasonings alone for eight to ten minutes to reduce and marry, then add the shrimp for the final two minutes with the thickener, just long enough to heat through.
- GillsA gill is a quarter pint, or half a cup. One gill milk is 1/2 cup; one and a half gills cream is 3/4 cup.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. So 1/4 teaspoon cayenne and 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg — the cayenne is assertive at that level, and a scant measure is defensible.
- Beurre manié"Knead on a plate an ounce butter with a tablespoon flour" is beurre manié: 2 tablespoons soft butter worked to a smooth paste with the flour, then whisked in in small pellets. Add it off a hard boil so it disperses rather than seizing into lumps.
- SherryUse a dry or medium sherry (fino or amontillado); modern sweet cream sherry will read as dessert against the cayenne. Two tablespoons in this quantity of sauce is noticeable, which is the intent.
- CreamHeavy cream holds up to the sherry's acid; light cream or half-and-half is more likely to break. Keep the heat at a bare simmer.
- Quantity of shrimpOne and a half pounds is specified before shelling of already-cooked shrimp, so the usable meat will be appreciably less, perhaps three-quarters of a pound. Buying raw shrimp, poach them briefly and cool before proceeding.
- YieldNo yield is given. This quantity of shrimp and sauce will serve perhaps three or four. The sauce is a thin nappe, not a paste, so a deep dish is right.
Creamed shrimp of this kind belongs to the American hotel-and-restaurant repertoire that drew on French crevettes à la crème, and the marks of the style are on the page: cream cut with sherry, cayenne and nutmeg for warmth, and a finish of beurre manié rather than a made-ahead roux. The International Cook Book is the work of Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York, and its recipes read as professional kitchen practice compressed into a paragraph — no yields, no pan sizes, no explanation, because the reader was assumed to know. The pairing of shellfish with nutmeg is older, recalling the English habit of spicing potted and buttered shrimp.