Home › Fish › Sandwich (Cook one-half pound)
Sandwich (Cook one-half pound)
Cook one-half pound of mushrooms in a little butter until tender, then add one small sliced onion, moisten with a little stock and let simmer until done. Remove from the fire and chop fine; press through a sieve and season with salt and pepper and a dash of tomato catsup. When cool, add a little lobster meat pounded smooth, mix and spread on thin slices of lightly buttered white bread. Garnish with an olive.
A mushroom-and-lobster paste rather than a layered sandwich; the filling does all the work, so its texture matters more than anything else here.
- Cook the mushrooms dry firstHalf a pound of mushrooms will release a great deal of water. Sauté them in butter over fairly high heat until that liquid has evaporated and they begin to brown, or the finished paste will be too wet to hold on bread.
- "A little stock"Two to three tablespoons is enough — just sufficient to keep the onion from catching while it softens. This is a moistening, not a braise, and it should be nearly gone by the time you take the pan off the heat.
- Pressing through a sieveIn this period that would have meant a hair or wire sieve and a wooden spoon, which is slow work. A food processor gives a smoother paste in seconds; pulse rather than purée so the mushroom keeps a little body.
- How much lobsterThe amount is left open, though 'a little' implies the lobster seasons the mushroom rather than matching it. Around two ounces of cooked lobster to half a pound of mushrooms fits that wording; increase it if you want the lobster forward. Pound or chop it very fine — the point is a spread, not chunks.
- Cool before combiningThe instruction to wait until the mushroom mixture is cool is not incidental: warm filling will soften the butter on the bread and soak into the slice.
- Tomato catsupPeriod catsup was thinner, sharper and more spiced than the modern bottle. Start with half a teaspoon of contemporary ketchup and taste; a few drops of sherry or a scrape of cayenne gets closer to the intended effect.
- Bread and assemblyThin-cut white bread, buttered edge to edge, and crusts trimmed if you are serving these for tea. Spread thinly — the filling is rich and a heavy layer overwhelms the bread.
- YieldEnough filling for roughly 12 to 16 small tea sandwiches. Make the paste a few hours ahead and keep it covered and cold; assemble close to serving so the bread stays dry.
Sandwich books proliferated in the United States in the first decades of the twentieth century, when afternoon tea, card parties and "luncheon" service created steady demand for small, tidy, spreadable food. This filling belongs to a whole family of period recipes built on a pounded seasoned paste — potted meats, fish pastes, forcemeats — a technique inherited from the days before refrigeration, when pounding with butter and sealing was a way to keep cooked flesh usable. Lobster turns up constantly in books of this period in salads, croquettes and sandwiches. Its pairing with mushrooms and a dash of catsup reflects the Anglo-American taste of the era for savoury, faintly acid seasoning, of a piece with the Worcestershire and bottled sauces already long established in such kitchens.