Common Sense in the Household 11

Common Sense in the Household 11

SHELL-FISH.

 

 

TO BOIL A LOBSTER.

 

Choose a lively one—not too large, lest he should be tough. Put a

handful of salt into a pot of boiling water, and having tied the claws

together, if your fish merchant has not already skewered them, plunge

him into the prepared bath. He will be restive under this vigorous

hydropathic treatment; but allay your tortured sympathies by the

reflection that he is a cold-blooded animal, destitute of imagination,

and that pain, according to some philosophers, exists only in the

imagination. However this may be, his suffering will be short-lived.

Boil from half an hour to an hour, as his size demands. When done,

draw out the scarlet innocent, and lay him, face downward, in a sieve

to dry. When cold, split open the body and tail, and crack the claws

to extract the meat, throwing away the “lady fingers” and the head.

Lobsters are seldom served without dressing, upon private tables, as

few persons care to take the trouble of preparing their own salad after

taking their seats at the board.

 

 

DEVILLED LOBSTER.

 

Extract the meat from a boiled lobster, as for salad, and mince it

finely; reserve the coral. Season highly with mustard, cayenne, salt,

and some pungent sauce. Toss and stir until it is well mixed, and put

into a porcelain saucepan (covered), with just enough hot water to

keep it from burning. Rub the coral smooth, moistening with vinegar

until it is thin enough to pour easily, then stir into the contents

of the saucepan. It is necessary to prepare the dressing, let me say,

before the lobster-meat is set on the fire. It ought to boil up but

once before the coral and vinegar are put in. Next stir in a heaping

tablespoonful of butter, and when it boils again, take the pan from the

fire. Too much cooking toughens the meat. This is a famous supper dish

for sleighing parties.

 

 

LOBSTER CROQUETTES. ✠

 

To the meat of a well-boiled lobster, chopped fine, add pepper, salt,

and powdered mace. Mix with this one-quarter as much bread-crumbs, well

rubbed, as you have meat; make into ovates, or pointed balls, with two

tablespoonfuls of melted butter. Roll these in beaten egg, then in

pulverized cracker, and fry in butter or very nice sweet lard. Serve

dry and hot, and garnish with crisped parsley. This is a delicious

supper dish or _entrée_ at dinner.

 

 

DEVILLED CRAB. ✠

 

This is prepared according to the receipt for devilled

lobster—substituting for the coral in the vinegar some pulverized

cracker, moistened first with a tablespoonful of rich cream. You can

serve up in the back-shell of the crab if you like. Send in with cream

crackers, and stick a sprig of parsley in the top of each heap, ranging

the shells upon a large flat dish.

 

 

CRAB SALAD.

 

Mince the meat and dress as in lobster salad. Send in the back-shell of

the crab.

 

 

SOFT CRABS. ✠

 

Many will not eat hard-shell crabs, considering them indigestible,

and not sufficiently palatable to compensate for the risk they run in

eating them. And it must be owned that they are, at their best, but an

indifferent substitute for the more aristocratic lobster. But in the

morning of life, for him so often renewed, his crabship is a different

creature, and greatly affected by epicures.

 

Do not keep the crabs over night, as the shells harden in twenty-four

hours. Pull off the spongy substance from the sides and the sand bags.

These are the only portions that are uneatable. Wash well, and wipe

dry. Have ready a pan of seething hot lard or butter, and fry them to a

fine brown. Put a little salt into the lard. The butter will need none.

Send up hot, garnished with parsley.

 

 

WATER-TURTLES, OR TERRAPINS.

 

Land-terrapins, it is hardly necessary to say, are uneatable, but the

large turtle that frequents our mill-ponds and rivers can be converted

into a relishable article of food.

 

Plunge the turtle into a pot of boiling water, and let him lie there

five minutes. You can then skin the underpart easily, and pull off the

horny parts of the feet. Lay him for ten minutes in _cold_ salt and

water; then put into more hot water—salted, but not too much. Boil

until tender. The time will depend upon the size and age. Take him

out, drain, and wipe dry; loosen the shell carefully, not to break

the flesh; cut open also with care, lest you touch the gall-bag with

the knife. Remove this with the entrails and sand-bag. Cut up all

the rest of the animal into small bits, season with pepper, salt, a

chopped onion, sweet herbs, and a teaspoonful of some spiced sauce, or

a tablespoonful of catsup—walnut or mushroom. Save the juice that runs

from the meat, and put all together into a saucepan with a closely

fitting top. Stew gently fifteen minutes, stirring occasionally, and

add a great spoonful of butter, a tablespoonful of browned flour wet

in cold water, a glass of brown Sherry, and lastly, the beaten yolk of

an egg, mixed with a little of the hot liquor, that it may not curdle.

Boil up once, and turn into a covered dish. Send around green pickles

and delicate slices of dry toast with it.

 

 

STEWED OYSTERS.

 

Drain the liquor from two quarts of firm, plump oysters; mix with it

a small teacupful of hot water, add a little salt and pepper, and

set over the fire in a saucepan. Let it boil up once, put in the

oysters, let them boil for five minutes or less—not more. When they

“ruffle,” add two tablespoonfuls of butter. The instant it is melted

and well stirred in, put in a large cupful of boiling milk and take the

saucepan from the fire. Serve with oyster or cream crackers, as soon as

possible. Oysters become tough and tasteless when cooked too much, or

left to stand too long after they are withdrawn from the fire.

 

 

FRIED OYSTERS. ✠

 

Use for frying the largest and best oysters you can find. Take them

carefully from the liquor; lay them in rows upon a clean cloth, and

press another lightly upon them to absorb the moisture. Have ready some

crackers crushed fine. In the frying-pan heat enough nice butter to

cover the oysters entirely. Dip each oyster into the cracker, rolling

it over that it may become completely incrusted. Drop them carefully

into the frying-pan, and fry quickly to a light brown. If the butter

is hot enough they will soon be ready to take out. Test it by putting

in one oyster before you risk the rest. Do not let them lie in the pan

an instant after they are done. Serve dry, and let the dish be warm. A

chafing-dish is best.

 

 

OYSTER FRITTERS. ✠

 

Drain the liquor from the oysters, and to a cupful of this add the

same quantity of milk, three eggs, a little salt, and flour enough for

a thin batter. Chop the oysters and stir into the batter. Have ready

in the frying-pan a few spoonfuls of lard, or half lard, half butter;

heat very hot, and drop the oyster-batter in by the tablespoonful. Try

a spoonful first, to satisfy yourself that the lard is hot enough, and

that the fritter is of the right size and consistency. Take rapidly

from the pan as soon as they are done to a pleasing yellow brown, and

send to table very hot.

 

Some fry the oyster whole, enveloped in batter, one in each fritter.

In this case, the batter should be thicker than if the chopped oysters

were to be added.

 

 

SCALLOPED OYSTERS. ✠

 

Crush and roll several handfuls of Boston or other friable crackers.

Put a layer in the bottom of a buttered pudding-dish. Wet this with a

mixture of the oyster liquor and milk, slightly warmed. Next, have a

layer of oysters. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and lay small bits of

butter upon them. Then another layer of moistened crumbs, and so on

until the dish is full. Let the top layer be of crumbs, thicker than

the rest, and beat an egg into the milk you pour over them. Stick bits

of butter thickly over it, cover the dish, set it in the oven, bake

half an hour; if the dish be large, remove the cover, and brown by

setting it upon the upper grating of oven, or by holding a hot shovel

over it.

 

 

BROILED OYSTERS. ✠

 

Choose large, fat oysters; wipe them very dry; sprinkle salt and

cayenne pepper upon them, and broil upon one of the small gridirons

sold for that purpose. You can dredge the oyster with cracker-dust

or flour if you wish to have it brown, and some fancy the juices are

better kept in in this way. Others dislike the crust thus formed.

Butter the gridiron well, and let your fire be hot and clear. If the

oyster drip, withdraw the gridiron for an instant until the smoke

clears away. Broil quickly and dish hot, putting a tiny piece of

butter, not larger than a pea, upon each oyster.

 

 

CREAM OYSTERS ON THE HALF-SHELL.

 

Pour into your inner saucepan a cup of hot water, another of milk,

and one of cream, with a little salt. Set into a kettle of hot water

until it boils, when stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter and a little

salt, with white pepper. Take from the fire and add two heaping

tablespoonfuls of arrow-root, rice-flour, or corn-starch, wet with

cold milk. By this time your shells should be washed and buttered, and

a fine oyster laid within each. Of course, it is _selon les régles_

to use oyster-shells for this purpose; but you will find clam-shells

more roomy and manageable, because more regular in shape. Range these

closely in a large baking-pan, propping them with clean pebbles or

fragments of shell, if they do not seem inclined to retain their

contents. Stir the cream _very_ hard and fill up each shell with a

spoon, taking care not to spill any in the pan. Bake five or six

minutes in a hot oven after the shells become warm. Serve on the shell.

Some substitute oyster-liquor for the water in the mixture, and use all milk instead of cream.