Home › Fish › Lobster Sandwich
Lobster Sandwich
On thin slices of lightly buttered white bread lay a crisp lettuce leaf; on top of that place shredded meat of a boiled lobster that has been mixed with a little mayonnaise dressing. Cover with another slice of bread and press together.
A plain lobster salad sandwich with nothing to hide behind, so the quality of the lobster and the restraint with the mayonnaise decide the result.
- The hinge: dress lightly"A little mayonnaise dressing" is meant literally: just enough to bind, perhaps a tablespoon or so per cup of picked meat. Overdressed lobster tastes of nothing but mayonnaise and will eventually soak through the bread.
- How much lobsterA 1 1/4 lb live lobster yields about 4 to 5 oz of picked meat, enough for two generous sandwiches. Two lobsters, or about 8 oz of picked meat, will fill four.
- Boiling the lobsterEight to ten minutes in heavily salted boiling water for a 1 1/4 lb lobster, then straight into ice water to stop the cooking. Lobster held longer turns fibrous and cottony, which no amount of dressing corrects.
- "Shredded" meatRead this as torn or pulled into coarse threads rather than diced. Claw and knuckle meat shreds naturally; tail meat is better sliced into thick rounds and then broken up by hand.
- Chill before assemblingThe lobster and the dressing should both be cold when they meet the bread. Warm meat weeps liquid and the mayonnaise loosens.
- MayonnaiseA cook of this period would have made her own with raw yolk. Commercial mayonnaise is made with pasteurised egg and is the practical choice here; if you make your own, use pasteurised eggs and serve the sandwiches the same day.
- Seasoning the book omitsLobster dressed with mayonnaise alone is flat. Salt, a squeeze of lemon, and a little cayenne or paprika are all consistent with the period and all worth adding.
- The bread"Thin slices of lightly buttered white bread" suggests a fine close-crumbed sandwich loaf, sliced about 1/4 inch. The butter does structural work as well as flavouring, sealing the crumb against the dressing, so take it out to the edges even though the recipe asks only for a light coat.
Sandwich books proliferated in America between about 1890 and 1920, when afternoon tea, card parties and the newly fashionable picnic basket created demand for small composed foods that could be made in advance. Lobster belongs in such books for a practical reason: by the late nineteenth century the New England lobster fishery was shipping canned and live lobster inland by rail, and lobster had completed its long shift from cheap coastal food and bait to a luxury with genteel associations. The pairing with mayonnaise reflects the same period's enthusiasm for cold "salad" mixtures, a habit generally traced to the influence of French cold-kitchen technique on American cookery schools.