Miss Leslie's Complete Cookery. Eliza Leslie
Parboil the lobster in boiling water well salted. Then pick out all the meat from the body and claws, and beat it in a mortar with nutmeg, mace, cayenne, and salt, to your taste. Beat the coral separately. Then put the pounded meat into a large potting can of block tin with a cover. Press it down hard, having arranged it in alternate layers of white meat and coral to give it a marbled or variegated appearance. Cover it with fresh butter, and put it into a slow oven for half an hour. When cold, take off the butter and clarify it, by putting it into a jar, which must be set in a pan of boiling water. Watch it well, and when it melts, carefully skim off the buttermilk which will rise to the top. When no more scum rises, take it off and let it stand for a few minutes to settle, and then strain it through a sieve.
Put the lobster into small potting-cans, pressing it down very hard. Pour the clarified butter over it, and secure the covers tightly.
Potted lobster is used to lay between thin slices of bread as sandwiches. The clarified butter that accompanies it is excellent for fish sauce.
Prawns and crabs may be potted in a similar manner.
LOBSTER PIE.
Put two middle-sized lobsters into boiling salt and water. When they are half boiled, take the meat from the shell, cut it into very small pieces, and put it into a pie dish. Break up the shells, and stew them in a very little water with half a dozen blades of mace and a grated nutmeg. Then strain off the liquid. Beat the coral in a mortar, and thicken the liquid with it. Pour this into the dish of lobster to make the gravy. Season it with cayenne, salt, and mushroom catchup, and add bits of butter. Cover it with a lid of paste, made in the proportion of ten ounces of butter to a pound of flour, notched handsomely, and ornamented with paste leaves. Do not send it to table till it has cooled.
TO BOIL PRAWNS.
Throw a handful of salt into a pot of boiling water. When it boils very hard, put in the prawns. Let them boil a quarter of an hour, and when you take them out lay them on a sieve to drain, and then wipe them on a dry cloth, and put them aside till quite cold.
Lay a handful of curled parsley in the middle of a dish. Put one prawn on the top of it, and lay the others all round, as close as you can, with the tails outside. Garnish with parsley.
Eat them with salt, cayenne, sweet oil, mustard and vinegar, mixed together as for lobsters.
CRABS.
Crabs are boiled in the same manner, and in serving up may be arranged like prawns.
HOT CRABS.
Having boiled the crabs, extract all the meat from the shell, cut it fine, and season it to your taste with nutmeg, salt, and cayenne pepper. Add a bit of butter, some grated bread crumbs, and sufficient vinegar to moisten it. Fill the back-shells of the crab with the mixture; set it before the fire, and brown it by holding a red-hot shovel or a salamander a little above it.
Cover a large dish with small slices of dry toast with the crust cut off. Lay on each slice a shell filled with the crab. The shell of one crab will contain the meat of two.
COLD CRABS.
Having taken all the meat out of the shells, make a dressing with sweet oil, salt, cayenne pepper, mustard and vinegar, as for lobster. You may add to it some hard-boiled yolk of egg, mashed in the oil. Put the mixture into the back-shells of the crabs, and serve it up. Garnish with the small claws laid nicely round.
SOFT CRABS.
These crabs must be cooked directly, as they will not keep till next day.
Remove the spongy substance from each side of the crab, and also the little sand-bag. Put some lard into a pan, and when it is boiling hot, fry the crabs in it. After you take them out, throw in a handful of parsley, and let it crisp; but withdraw it before it loses its colour. Strew it over the crabs when you dish them.
Make the gravy by adding cream or rich milk to the lard, with some chopped parsley, pepper and salt. Let them all boil together for a few minutes, and then serve it up in a sauce-boat.
TERRAPINS.
Have ready a pot of boiling water. When it is boiling very hard put in the terrapins, and let them remain in it till quite dead. Then take them out, pull off the outer skin and the toe-nails, wash the terrapins in warm water and boil them again, allowing a tea-spoonful of salt to two terrapins. When the flesh becomes quite tender so that you can pinch it off, take them out off the shell, remove the sand-bag, and the gall, which you must be careful not to break, as it will make the terrapin so bitter as to be uneatable. Cut up all the other parts of the inside with the meat, and season it to your taste with cayenne pepper, nutmeg, and mace. Put all into a stew-pan with the juice or liquor that it has given out in cutting up, but not any water. To every two terrapins allow a quarter of a pound of butter divided into pieces and rolled in flour, one glass of Madeira, and the yolks of two eggs. The eggs must be beaten, and not stirred in till a moment before it goes to table. Keep it closely covered. Stew it gently till every thing is tender, and serve it up hot in a deep dish. The entrails are no longer cooked with terrapins.
Terrapins, after being boiled by the cook, may be brought to table plain, with all the condiments separate, that the company may dress them according to taste.
For this purpose heaters or chafing-dishes must be provided for each plate.
PICKLED LOBSTER.
Take half a dozen fine lobsters. Put them into boiling salt and water, and when they are all done, take them out and extract all the meat from the shells, leaving that of the claws as whole as possible, and cutting the flesh of the body into large pieces nearly of the same size. Season a sufficient quantity of vinegar very highly with whole pepper-corns, whole cloves, and whole blades of mace. Put the pieces of lobster into a stew-pan, and pour on just sufficient vinegar to keep them well covered. Set it over a moderate fire; and when it has boiled hard about five minutes, take out the lobster, and let the pickle boil by itself for a quarter of an hour. When the pickle and lobster are both cold, put them together into a broad flat stone jar. Cover it closely, and set it away in a cool place.
Eat the pickled lobster with oil, mustard, and vinegar, and have bread and butter with it.
DIRECTIONS FOR COOKING MEAT.
BEEF.