The encyclopædia of practical cookery

Just previous to being served, throw them into boiling hog’s lard, and fry them for six or eight minutes, or until of a nice colour ; then take them out, put them on a strainer to drain, and serve on a dish with a cloth or napkin spread over it. For details respecting Culinary Processes, Utensils, Sauces, At. , referred to, see under their special heads. Crayfish — continued. Crayfish Salad with Aspic. — (1) Select three dozen Crayfish and boil them ; take them out when done, and let them cool. Remove the flesh from the tails and claws, put it into a basin, add a little seasoning, and cover with oil and vinegar. Take the small claws, remove the flesh from them, also the trimmings of the tails, mix them into a lettuce-and-cress salad cut up into shreds, season with salt, and add a little mayonnaise sauce to thicken. Take a plain border-mould, and put ice all round it. Next take four hard-boiled eggs, divide them in halves, dip them on one side only into a little half-set aspic jelly, and put them into the mould in an upright position with the points directed, to the bottom, cutting away a little of the sides to the shape of the side of the mould. In a few minutes’ time fill the mould up with aspic jelly, and let it get cold and set ; about fifteen minutes before it is wanted, turn it out on to a dish (quite cold). Arrange the salad in the shape of a pyramid in the cavity of the border. Take the tails one at a time, and with the aid of a larding-needle place them in a circle on the salad (see Fig. 551). Garnish an attelette skewer with a truffle, and put it in the top. Serve a sauceboatful of mayonnaise sauce with this. (2) Many varieties of this very pretty salad can be arranged by artistic cooks. The half eggs may be omitted, and the jelly border ornamented with glaze (see Fig. 555). [illustration: Fig. 555. Crayfish Salad with Aspic (No. 2).] Crayfish. Sauce. — Take ^lb. each of flour and butter, and moisten with a little water and the liquor that any fish has been cooked in (but having the fat removed), and with them make a sauce. When it thickens in boiling, add 3oz. of fresh butter, a small lump of Crayfish butter, and 5 table -spoonfuls of Crayfish-tails and claws, either cut up into small dice or put in whole. Crayfish Soup. — (1) Thoroughly wash fifty live Crayfish in plenty of cold water, and put them head first into 4qts. of boiling water with 1 table-spoonful of salt, a carrot scraped and sliced, one turnip and one onion (peeled and sliced), one Crayfish — continued.