butter or olive-oil; broil it gently, but not too well done. Heat the
shell, put the meat back in the shell again, add more butter, salt,
pepper, and serve on hot plates. The body parts may be boiled, and
furnish dainty pickings for a late meal.
The other way is that which is generally adopted by restaurants. Brush
a little butter over the entire half of the green lobster; broil the
shell side thoroughly first, then turn, and broil the other. Serve with
maitre-d’hôtel sauce.
A lobster that has once been boiled and then broiled is so thoroughly
over-cooked as to be very indigestible.
=Lobster Croquettes, with Pease.=--Boil one-half pint of milk, thicken
it with a tablespoonful of flour, and let it become cold. Mince the
meat of a one-pound can of lobster, or one pound of fresh lobster;
when very fine, add a saltspoonful of salt and half a saltspoonful of
white pepper. Moisten the lobster mince with the thickened milk, and
work the whole to a paste; add very little bread-crumb if too thin; let
it become amalgamated over the range, and place in the ice-box until
wanted; then shape it into neat rolls or cones; dip them in egg and
crumbs, and fry in plenty of hot fat. Arrange the forms neatly on a
dish, put round them a border of pease, and serve.
=Lobsters en Brochette.=--Instead of boiling the lobster-tails, cut
them in pieces, and arrange these on small skewers, alternated with
small pieces of bacon; brush melted butter over them, and either broil
or bake them; serve with sauce tartare (which see on p. 84).
=Deviled Lobster.=--Take two live lobsters, remove the tails, split
them in two, and make several incisions in them crosswise. Mix together
half a teaspoonful of salt, a saltspoonful each of dry mustard and
curry, and half a saltspoonful of white pepper, add a tablespoonful
of oil; mix, spread it over the lobsters, and broil them. When done,
return to the shells, which should have been kept hot for the purpose;
pour a little melted butter over them, and serve.
=Stewed Lobster, à la Créole.=--Remove the tail part of the meat
from three green lobsters; split them in two lengthwise; remove the
thread-like intestine. Melt an ounce of butter in a deep frying-pan;
add the lobster; toss it for a few minutes in the butter; add salt and
pepper and half a pint of hot water; cover, and simmer three-quarters
of an hour; drain, and reduce the water one-half by rapid boiling. Put
in a saucepan half an ounce of butter and a tablespoonful of minced
onion; fry brown, and add three peeled and sliced tomatoes, one sweet
pepper, four okra pods cut small, and half a teaspoonful of salt. Allow
these to cook fifteen minutes, add the broth, and simmer until reduced
to a pulp; rub through a sieve; put this _puree_ on a hot dish, place
the lobster on top, add a little lemon-juice, and serve.
=Curry of Lobster.=--Remove the meat from two boiled lobsters, cut it
into neat pieces; take all green fat and coral, and set them aside;
mix the green fat with a heaping spoonful of curry-powder. Squeeze
out the juice of three limes, and add to it half a teaspoonful of
powdered sugar. Put into a frying-pan an ounce of butter; when creamed
add a teaspoonful of minced onion browned a little; now add the mixed
curry-powder; dissolve a teaspoonful of rice-flour in cold water, add
this to a pint of hot water or soup-stock, simmer until thick; now add
the lobster, and simmer twenty minutes longer. Wash and dry the coral,
separate it. Prepare a border of rice on a dish, and over it sprinkle
the coral and eggs (if any); pour the curry in the centre, and serve.
=Lobster Salad.=--Take two live hen (female) lobsters; boil them
thirty minutes; drain. When cold, break them apart; crack the claws,
and if the tail-fins are covered with eggs remove them carefully.
Take out the sand-pouch found near the head; split the fleshy part
of the tail in two lengthwise, remove the small long entrail found
therein. Adhering to the body-shell may be found a layer of creamy fat;
save this, and also the green fat in the body of the lobster (called
tom-alley by New-Englanders), and the coral. If celery is used, tear
the lobster into shreds with forks; if lettuce, cut the lobster into
half-inch pieces. Place the salad herb in a bowl, add the lobster and
the fat, and pour over it a rich mayonnaise; garnish with the claws
and heads, tufts of green, hard-boiled eggs, etc. The lobster eggs may
be separated, and sprinkled over the mayonnaise. The coral is used for
coloring mayonnaise, and also butter, which is then used in decorating
salmon and other dark fish used in salads.
THE OYSTER CRAB.
The little crab found in the oyster is not, as commonly supposed by
two-thirds of the oyster-eating community to be, the young of the
blue crab; but it is a distinct species. It is a messmate of and
caterer to the wants of the oyster, being therefore a benefit instead
of a detriment to the latter. In return for the oyster’s kindness in
protecting it against its enemies, the little crab catches and crushes
food which in its entire state could not be taken by the oyster. A
singular thing in connection with them is, that all found inside of
the oyster are females. The male of the same variety is found in the
neighborhood, but its shell is firm.
Oyster-crabs are found at the grocer’s, put up in half-pint bottles,
which retail from 60 to 75 cents each. At the markets they are sold at
$2.50 per quart.
=To Serve Oyster Crabs.=--Put on a small saucer a crisp but dry leaf of
lettuce, and put in the centre of each leaf a scant tablespoonful of
the oyster crabs. Add a scant teaspoonful of mayonnaise to each, and
serve as a whet before a ladies’ collation, or at an afternoon luncheon.
=Oyster-Crab Omelet.=--This is a most tempting dish. Roll an ounce of
butter into little balls, dredge these with flour, put them in a pan,
and when they begin to melt whisk them; do not let it brown; add a gill
of hot water, and simmer until thick; now add half a pint of oyster
crabs, salt, and a pinch of cayenne. Beat up four eggs thoroughly, and
make them into an omelet; just before folding, add the crabs, and serve.
=Oyster-Crab Sauce.=--Add a tablespoonful of oyster-crabs to half a
pint of drawn butter, sauce hollandaise, or in fact any white or cream
fish-sauce, and serve with boiled fish.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT.
The writer is deeply indebted to Prof. George Brown Goode’s compilation
and reports of the “Fishery Industries of the United States,” for much
of the natural history of fish and shell embodied in this work.
SHRIMPS.
The common shrimp, which is caught in immense quantities along our
coast all summer, and used for bait, is a dainty which summer residents
should not neglect. When a shrimp salad is wanted, however, the servant
is sent to the nearest grocer for a can of Southern shrimp, and the
delicious morsel at their very door is used to feed the fishes. The
trouble seems to be, that servants dislike the trouble of picking them
out of their transparent shells.
Summer hotels would buy the native shrimp if fishermen would take the
trouble of offering them. No more appetizing or appropriate garnish for
lobster salads and for portions of boiled fish can be imagined than
the little home shrimp properly boiled. A plunge into the hot water is
about all the cooking they need.
=Market Price of Shrimps.=--Cooked and shelled shrimps are to be had
in our markets during warm weather, for from thirty to fifty cents per
quart. Canned shrimps retail for from thirty to forty cents per can,
and $3.50 per dozen. Rinse them in fresh water before using them.
=Shrimp Omelet.=--Toss half a pint of canned or fresh shrimps in a
little hot butter for a moment; add a little salt and pepper and a
tablespoonful of tomato sauce. Prepare the omelet, and just before
folding add the shrimps, and serve.
=Shrimp Sauce.=--Cut up the shrimps into halves, add them to a creamy
fish sauce of any kind; mix and serve.
PRAWNS.
Scientifically there is a difference between the prawn and the shrimp;
but it need not be considered by the housewife, except that the prawn,
that comes to this market from the South already cooked and shelled, is
larger than the shrimp, and a little stronger flavored.
The shrimps and prawns are found in salt and brackish water, while the
crayfish are inhabitants of fresh water.
=Curry of Prawns.=--Prawns are at their best served as a curry. Boil
two quarts of live prawns thirty minutes, drain when slightly cooled,
break away the shells, and set them aside. Put two ounces of butter
in a frying-pan; when very hot add a clove of garlic and one sliced
apple; brown slightly, remove the garlic, and add a dessertspoonful of
curry-powder mixed with a gill of water; stir, and add half a pint of
soup-stock and half a teaspoonful of flour; now add the prawns, and the
juice of half a lemon in which a lump of sugar has been dissolved. Pour
out on a hot dish, and send to table with rice croquettes.
=Prawns, Deviled, en Coquille.=--Simmer a quart of prawns fifteen
minutes in water flavored with a little sharp vinegar; drain, and cut
them very fine. Add two ounces of butter, a gill of water, salt and
pepper, the yolks of two eggs, and bread-crumbs to absorb the moisture.
Mix to a paste. Partly fill the shells, cover with crumbs, add a small
pat of butter to each, and bake to a delicate brown.
=Prawns, Sauté, à la Marengo.=--Wash one pint of “shelled” prawns,
simmer them twenty minutes, drain, and toss them a moment in a little
hot olive-oil; remove them, add a sprig of parsley, half a dozen button
mushrooms, a gill of hot water, salt and pepper, and thicken with a
little flour. Put the prawns on a dish, pour the sauce over them,
garnish with fried eggs and slices of tomatoes fried.
=Prawn Salad.=--Take one quart of prawns and one quart and a pint of
cut celery; put the celery in a bowl; add the prawns; garnish neatly,
and serve with a mayonnaise.
CRAYFISH.
The crayfish are inhabitants of fresh-water streams; and they bear a
striking resemblance to the lobster in appearance, spawning habits,
shedding their shell, etc. Their season begins early in the spring, and
lasts until cold weather. During a bountiful supply of these delicious
shell-fish, large quantities are packed away in ice-houses for winter
use, when there is a big demand for them from caterers who use them
as garnishment, and for salads and sauces. They cost from three to
four dollars per hundred in the New-York markets. Those that come from
Milwaukee are highly esteemed; and, as they are already cooked, they
may be used at luncheon, and on fast-days as salads. A crayfish salad
is an enjoyable dish.
=Crayfish Omelet.=--Rinse half a pint of crayfish tails in salted
water, and drain them; then split each tail in two lengthwise, and
remove the thread-like intestine found therein. Toss them about a
moment in a little butter and tablespoonful of broth or gravy; season
with a dash of cayenne. Make a four-egg omelet, and just before folding
add the crayfish.
SALMON.
=Salmon Steak.=--Put into fast boiling water, salted, a slice of fresh
salmon, and boil for five minutes quite rapidly; then set on back of
the range where it will simmer for fifteen minutes longer. Drain, and
place it on a napkin surrounded with a border of parsley. On the two
ends of the platter place slices of lemon. Serve with a sauce in a
sauce-boat. Drawn butter with a few prawns or shrimps cut up in it is a
nice sauce for salmon.
=Canned Salmon.=--The canning of salmon at the source of supply has
been of lasting benefit to mankind, for we are now able to procure
a pound of salmon in any quarter of the globe for a reasonable sum.
Canned salmon has one advantage over the fresh fish: it does not
deteriorate, and lose its flavor. Those who have tried it say they
do not get surfeited with canned salmon, although many of the same
individuals dislike the fresh salmon owing to its richness, and on this
account rarely eat it.
=Salmon Patties.=--This is a very nice way of serving salmon at
luncheon. Open a pound can of salmon, drain, add to the small amount of
salmon liquid sufficient water to make a gill, season it with salt and
pepper, and, if on hand, add a little anchovy paste. Beat up the yolks
of two eggs with half a teaspoonful of flour dissolved in a little cold
water or milk: add the gill of water, place it on the range to become
hot and thick, whisking it meanwhile; break the salmon into pieces,
and add to the sauce. When quite hot, fill the patty shells with it,
and serve. A very rich sauce may be made by the addition of butter and
cream.
The patty shells are made as follows: Roll out some very light
puff-paste, half an inch thick; stamp it in rounds with a three-inch
cutter, press a small cutter in the middle of each round to the depth
of quarter of an inch; put the rounds on a buttered tin, brush a little
beaten egg over them, and bake in a quick oven. When done, remove the
centre, scoop out a little of the inside, and the shells are ready for
the mixture.
=Salmon Surprise.=--Boil two quarts of potatoes with their jackets on.
When done, peel and mash them with butter and warm milk. Arrange a
border of potatoes on a flat, oval dish. In the centre of this put a
pound of canned or cold salmon separated into neat-sized pieces, salt,
pepper, a very little mace, and a teaspoonful of chopped parsley; cover
the salmon with a layer of raw oysters; add a little oyster-liquor,
cover the oysters with a thin smooth layer of mashed potato, and brush
the beaten yolk of egg over all. Then make a small hole in the centre,
and place the dish in an oven hot enough to brown the outside quickly.
=Salmon à la Créole.=--Scald and put three large tomatoes to simmer
in very little water, until tender: chop up very fine a sweet Spanish
pepper and quarter of an onion; fry these in a little bacon fat; add
the tomato, salt, and little white pepper. Simmer until reduced to a
pulp. Open a pound can of salmon; set the can in a saucepan half full
of hot water, turn the salmon out on a dish. When it is quite hot, pour
the pulp over it, and serve. Canned tomatoes may be used instead of
fresh tomatoes.
=Salmon Pie.=--Cut up four boiled potatoes into neat pieces; cut half
a pound of boiled salt pork into dice; divide a pound of canned salmon
into symmetrical pieces; roll out quarter of a pound of puff-paste, cut
it into squares, and roll each of these into a little ball. Arrange
these ingredients alternately in a deep yellow dish, season with salt
and pepper, add hot water or gravy to prevent burning, cover the top
with paste, make a hole in the centre, and bake in a moderate oven.
=Salmon in Jelly.=--Take one gallon of clear soup, and boil it down to
a quart. Soak a teaspoonful of gelatine in cold water, and add to the
reduced soup to make sure that it will be stiff when cold.
Take a two-quart tin mould, set it on ice, and pour enough of the
liquid in it to cover the bottom. Let this become firm. Cut into
slices, and then into diamonds, boiled beets, white turnips, and cold
boiled tongue; dip each into the liquid, and place them in the mould
in a very neat and artistic manner; when they become firm, spread over
them a layer an inch thick, of cream-mashed potato; now add a pound of
canned salmon, and pour round the edges and on top the remainder of the
reduced soup, and set the mould in a very cold place to become firm.
When wanted, dip the mould into hot water quickly, and turn it out.
This is an excellent dish for collations, wedding breakfasts, etc. The
potato must be made rich with butter and milk, and beaten to a light
consistency before being placed in the mould. Any other kind of cold
fish will answer quite as well as salmon for this and other dishes
herein mentioned.
=Salmon Omelet.=--Separate half a pound of canned salmon into flakes,
season with salt and pepper, a little lemon-juice, and add a little of
the liquid; heat it a little, whip up the eggs for an omelet, prepare
it as usual, and just before completing the fold add the salmon; then
turn it out on a hot dish.
=Salmon, German Style.=--Boil two quarts of sauerkraut; drain it, and
pile it on a hot dish; have ready a pound of canned salmon hot; make a
hole in the centre of the kraut, insert the fish, simmer and season the
salmon liquid, pour it over the dish, and serve.
=Salmon à l’Italienne.=--Boil half a pound of macaroni in water
slightly salted; drain. Heat a can of salmon in hot water; turn it out
on a dish; arrange the macaroni round it; pour over the macaroni the
contents of a pound can of tomato-pulp (hot), sprinkle over this a
little grated Parmesan cheese, and serve.
=Salmon à la Hollandaise.=--Heat a pound of canned salmon in the
original can; turn it out on a hot dish, garnish neatly, and pour over
it the following sauce: Cream two ounces of butter, whisk into it the
yolks of two beaten eggs, add a little salt and white pepper, and half
a teaspoonful of strong vinegar; put the pan in a larger one containing
hot water, whisk it until it thickens, and just before serving add a
little lemon-juice.
=Salmon, Hunter’s Style.=--One of the best dishes I have ever eaten
while hunting was prepared as follows: Take three one-pound cans of
salmon (save the liquid), and divide into neat pieces; make a dough
as for milk biscuits: divide half of it into little balls; take one
box of sardines; put a layer of sliced bacon in the bottom of a gallon
crock; add a layer of salmon, a few dough balls, two sardines, salt,
cayenne. Continue arranging in alternate layers until the ingredients
are all used; add a wineglassful of vinegar to the salmon liquid, and
if there is not enough add a little water; cover the top with the
remainder of the dough, and tie one or two thicknesses of white cloth
over all. Dig a hole deep enough to be lined with mud or stones and to
receive the crock; build a fire in and over it (the smoke will keep off
the mosquitoes). When reduced to coals, scoop out the ashes and coals
from the hole, cover the cloth with mud, set the crock in the hole,
and cover up with the hot ashes; let it remain three hours, and a more
satisfactory dish cannot be imagined.
=Bouillabaisse.=--This celebrated dish was immortalized by Thackeray.
Put into a frying-pan a gill of olive-oil, a clove of garlic minced,
a tablespoonful of chopped onion, two cloves, six peppercorns; when
slightly brown, add one pound of canned salmon and the salmon liquid in
the can; add a little salt, a bit of bay leaf, three slices of lemon,
a pint of tomato pulp, a pinch of curry-powder or saffron, a gill of
Rhine wine, with water enough to cover the fish: simmer twenty minutes.
Line a deep dish with toast, remove from the pan all seasoning in
sight, pour the contents of the pan on the toast, and serve.
CODFISH.
=Boiled Codfish, Oyster Sauce.=--The only thing that can be urged
against this most excellent fish is its homely name. Were it not so
cheap, its good qualities would rapidly find favor at all gastronomic
entertainments where palate-pleasing dishes are appreciated. Put the
fish into boiling water, slightly salted; add a few whole cloves and
peppers, and a bit of lemon-peel; pull gently on the fins, and when
they come out easily the fish is done. Arrange neatly on a folded
napkin, garnish, and serve with oyster sauce. Take six oysters to every
pound of fish, and scald them in a half-pint of hot oyster liquor; take
out the oysters, and add to the liquor, salt, pepper, a bit of mace,
and an ounce of butter; whip into it a gill of milk, containing half of
a teaspoonful of flour. Simmer a moment; add the oysters, and send to
table in a sauce-boat.
A four-pound fish should cook in about forty minutes.
=Codfish Tongues.=--Wash four codfish tongues thoroughly in cold water;
put them on the range in hot water, slightly salted, and boil thirty
minutes; drain; arrange neatly on a folded napkin placed upon a hot
dish; garnish with parsley and slices of lemon, and send to table with
cream sauce.
=Codfish Steak.=--Select a medium-sized fresh codfish, cut it in steaks
crosswise of the fish about an inch and a half thick; sprinkle a little
salt over them, and let them stand two hours. Cut into dice a pound of
salt fat pork, fry out all the fat from them, and remove the crisp bits
of pork; put the codfish steaks in a pan of corn-meal, dredge them with
it, and, when the pork-fat is smoking hot, fry the steaks in it to a
dark brown color on both sides. Squeeze over them a little lemon-juice,
add a dash of freshly ground pepper, and serve with hot, old-fashioned,
well buttered johnny-cake.
=New-England Codfish Balls.=--Shred the codfish the night before, and
soak it over night; drain quite dry on towel next day. Mash fine one
pound of hot boiled potatoes. Take an equal amount of codfish, and
divide it very fine. Mix both together, and add the beaten yolks of two
eggs, two ounces of melted butter, and a saltspoonful of white pepper.
Now beat the mixture until it is very light, for upon this process
depends the success or failure of the dish. In shaping them together,
do not press them any more than is absolutely necessary. Most cooks
press them into cakes so hard that it is next to an impossibility to
eat them. Dredge them lightly with a little flour, and fry them like
doughnuts in smoking hot fat. When properly prepared and cooked they
should fairly melt in the mouth, which they will do if thoroughly
beaten and lightly handled.
=Baked Cod.=--When purchasing a four-pound cod, ask your fish-dealer
to send you three “codfish-heads;” and as soon as the basket comes
into the house, rub a little salt on the fish, chop the heads into six
pieces each, and sprinkle a little salt over them. Place them in the
centre of the baking-pan (to be used as supports for the fish), with a
gill of water. Set the pan in the oven while you prepare the cod.
Soak in cold water until soft a sufficiency of bread to fill the fish;
drain off the water, and pound the bread to a paste; mix with it two
tablepoonsfuls of melted butter, two raw eggs, a tablespoonful of
Worcestershire sauce, with salt and pepper to taste. Put this stuffing
inside the fish, and sew it up; place the cod in the pan with two or
three pieces of butter on the upper side of the fish, and baste it
frequently; when it is cooked, lay the fish on a hot platter, and
garnish with fried oysters if convenient. Add a tablespoonful of brown
flour to the pan, a wineglass of claret; mix, and strain the gravy into
a sauce-boat. Time to cook, one hour.
=Salt Codfish with Cream.=--Soak one pound and a half of salt codfish
over night. Next morning set the fish to simmer for about two hours;
drain off the water, and strip the fish into shreds; place it in
a saucepan with a quart of milk and two ounces of butter; mix a
tablespoonful of flour with two tablespoonfuls of cold milk, and add to
the fish. Let the whole come to a boil; remove the dish from the fire,
beat up one egg to a froth, add it to the fish, stir, and serve.
=Scrod.=--Small codfish no larger than our tomcod are called scrod in
Eastern Massachusetts. After they have been corned over night, they are
broiled and fried.
BROOK TROUT.
Cultivated trout may be purchased at from sixty to seventy-five cents
per pound, and wild trout from twenty-five to thirty-five cents per
pound, after April first. There are many house-keepers who will not
purchase the latter, thinking that as they are cheaper, they cannot be
so good as the more expensive trout. Cultivated trout are only trout
in name and outside appearance, and no more compare in flavor with the
wild trout than chalk does with cheese. They are fattened (not allowed
to feed naturally) on cheap animal food that destroys all trout flavor;
and they live in artificial streams or ponds, acquiring a peculiar
swampy flavor which is decidedly objectionable.
The wild trout lives in clear running streams, fed from never-ending
springs; here he finds a beautiful supply of food furnished by nature’s
generous hand, instead of the refuse of the butcher furnished to his
more aristocratic brother. Besides being superior in every way, the
wild trout is always cheaper.
Shippers of trout often pack their speckled beauties in moss, which
injures their flavor materially; and the housekeeper is obliged to let
them stand in cold water, slightly salted, to extract the flavor of the
moss. This is a good plan to follow, by the way, when the trout are
frozen, as nearly all wild trout are in the early spring.