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To Dress Lobsters

A historical recipe from The Book of Household Management, by Beeton, Mrs. (Isabella Mary) (1861).

A historical recipe

The Book of Household Management, by Beeton, Mrs. (Isabella Mary) (1861). Project Gutenberg eBook #10136.

From an old book: a historical recipe, not current advice. Its methods, additives and storage may be unsafe by today's standards.

Source and licence

From The Book of Household Management, by Beeton, Mrs. (Isabella Mary) (1861). Digitised by Project Gutenberg, eBook #10136 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10136). Public domain in the USA; its status may differ elsewhere.

Read the original Public domain in the USA

What was changed: As printed, from the book's text; Project Gutenberg's header and licence removed. Ingredient lines were read out of the text by a program. A historical recipe, not current advice.

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Ingredients

Method

  1. 276.
  2. When the lobster is boiled, rub it over with a little salad-oil, which wipe off again;
  3. separate the body from the tail, break off the great claws, and crack them at the joints, without injuring the meat;
  4. split the tail in halves, and arrange all neatly in a dish, with the body upright in the middle, and garnish with parsley.
  5. (See Coloured Plate, H.) LOBSTER PATTIES (an Entree).
  6. 277.
  7. INGREDIENTS.--Minced lobster, 4 tablespoonfuls of béchamel, 6 drops of anchovy sauce, lemon-juice, cayenne to taste.
  8. Mode.--Line the patty-pans with puff-paste, and put into each a small piece of bread: cover with paste, brush over with egg, and bake of a light colour.
  9. Take as much lobster as is required, mince the meat very fine, and add the above ingredients;
  10. stir it over the fire for 6 minutes;
  11. remove the lids of the patty-cases, take out the bread, fill with the mixture, and replace the covers.
  12. LOCAL ATTACHMENT OF THE LOBSTER.--It is said that the attachment of this animal is strong to some particular parts of the sea, a circumstance celebrated in the following lines:-- "Nought like their home the constant lobsters prize, And foreign shores and seas unknown despise.
  13. Though cruel hands the banish'd wretch expel, And force the captive from his native cell, He will, if freed, return with anxious care, Find the known rock, and to his home repair;
  14. No novel customs learns in different seas, But wonted food and home-taught manners please."