To boil lobsters.
Ingredients:- 1/4 lb. of salt to each gallon of water.
Mode:- Medium-sized lobsters are the best. Have ready a stewpan of boiling water, salted within the above proportion; put in the lobster, and keep it boiling quickly from 20 minutes to 3/4 hour, per its size, and don't forget to skim well. If it boils too long, the meat becomes thready, and if not done enough, the spawn isn't red: this must be obviated by great attention. Hub the shell over with a bit of butter or sweet oil, which wipe off again.
Time. Small lobster, 20 minutes to 1/2 hour; large ditto, 1/2 to 1/3 hour.
Hot lobster.
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Ingredients:- 1 lobster, 2 oz. of butter, grated nutmeg; salt, pepper, and pounded mace, to taste; bread crumbs, 2 eggs.
Mode:- Pound the meat of the lobster to a smooth paste with the butter and seasoning, and add some bread crumbs. Beat the eggs, and make the entire mixture into the shape of a lobster; pound the spawn, and sprinkle over it. Bake 1/4 hour, and just before serving, lay over it the tail and body shell, with the small claws underneath, to resemble a lobster.
Time. 1/4 hour.
Lobster salad.
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Ingredients:- 1 hen lobster, lettuces, endive, small salad (whatever is in season), a bit of chopped beetroot, 2 hard-boiled eggs, a couple of slices of cucumber. For the dressing, equal quantities of oil and vinegar, 1 teaspoonful of made mustard, the yolks of two eggs; cayenne and salt to taste; 3 teaspoonful of sauce. These ingredients should be mixed perfectly smooth, and form a creamy-looking sauce.
Mode:- Wash the salad, and thoroughly dry it by shaking it in a cloth. Cut up the lettuces and endive, pour the dressing on them, and lightly add the small salad. Mix all well along with the pickings from the body of the lobster; pick the meat from the shell, cut it up into nice square pieces, put half in the salad, the other half reserve for garnishing. Separate the yolks from the whites of two hard-boiled eggs; chop the whites very fine, and rub the yolks through a sieve, and afterward the coral from the inside. Arrange the salad lightly on a glass dish, and garnish, first with a row of sliced cucumber, then with the pieces of lobster, the yolks and whites of the eggs, coral, and beetroot placed alternately, and arranged in small separate bunches, so the colours contrast nicely.
Note. some crayfish make a pretty garnishing to the lobster salad.
Lobster (a la mode Francaise).
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Ingredients:- 1 lobster, 4 tablespoonfuls of white stock, 2 tablespoonfuls of cream, pounded mace, and cayenne to taste; bread crumbs.
Mode:- Pick the meat from the shell, and cut it up into small square pieces; put the stock, cream, and seasoning into a stewpan, add the lobster, and let it simmer gently for 6 minutes. Serve it in the shell, which must be nicely cleaned, and have a border of puff-paste; cover it with bread crumbs, place small pieces of butter over, and brown before the fire, or with a salamander.
Time. 1/4 hour.
Lobster curry (an Entree).
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Ingredients:- 1 lobster, 2 onions, 1 oz. butter, 1 tablespoonful of curry powder, 1/2 pint of medium stock, the juice of 1/2 lemon.
Mode:- Pick the meat from the shell, and cut it into nice square pieces; fry the onions of a pale brown in the butter, stir in the curry powder and stock, and simmer till it thickens, when put in the lobster; stew all slowly for 1/2 hour, and stir occasionally; and just before sending to table, put in the lemon juice. Serve boiled rice with it, the same as for other curries.
Time. Altogether, 3/4 hour.
Lobster cutlets (an Entree).
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Ingredients:- 1 large hen lobster, 1 oz. fresh butter, 1/2 saltspoonful of salt, pounded mace, grated nutmeg, cayenne and white pepper to taste, egg, and bread crumbs.
Mode:- Pick the meat from the shell, and pound it in a mortar with the butter, and gradually add the mace and seasoning, well mixing the ingredients; beat all to a smooth paste, and add a bit of the spawn; divide the mixture into pieces of an equal size, and shape them like cutlets. They should not be very thick. Brush them over with egg, and sprinkle with bread crumbs, and stick a brief piece of the small claw within the top of each; fry them of a nice brown in boiling lard, and drain them before the fire, on a sieve reversed; arrange them nicely on a dish, and pour bechamel right in the middle, but not over the cutlets.
Time. About 8 minutes after the cutlets are made.
Lobster patties (an Entree).
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Ingredients:- Minced lobster, 4 tablespoonfuls of bechamel, 6 drops of anchovy sauce, lemon juice, cayenne to taste.
Mode:- Line the patty-pans with puff-paste, and put into each little piece of bread: cover with paste, brush over with egg, and bake of a light-weight colour. Take as much lobster as is required, mince the meat very fine, and add the above ingredients; stir it over the fire for six minutes; remove the lids of the patty-cases, take away the bread, fill with the mixture, and replace the covers.
Potted lobster.
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Ingredients:- 2 lobsters; seasoning to taste, of nutmeg, pounded mace, white pepper, and salt; 1/4 lb. of butter, 3 or 4 bay-leaves.
Mode:- remove the meat carefully from the shell, but don't cut it up. Put some butter at the bottom of a dish, lay in the lobster as evenly as possible, with the bay-leaves and seasoning between. Cover with butter, and bake for 3/4 hour in a gentle oven. When done, drain the whole on a sieve, and lay the pieces in potting-jars, with the seasoning about them. When cold, pour over it drawn butter, and, if very highly seasoned, it'll keep some time.
Time. 3/4 hour
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