The encyclopaedia of practical cookery

Lobster Forcemeat. — (1) Fry an onion chopped very fine in loz. of butter until it is a golden colour, adding 1 table-spoonful of flour to make a roux. Moisten with J pint of stock, stirring well and continuously until the sauce hardens. Season with J table-spoonful of salt, a scant teaspoonful of white pepper, the same of cayenne, 1 tablespoonful of English sauce, J teaspoonful of mustard, a crushed grain of garlic, and 1 teaspoonful of chopped parsley. Stir well, adding 21b. of cooked Lobster, cut up very fine, with twelve mushrooms, also chopped up small. Cook for thirty minutes in a saucepan, then put it back off the hot fire ; add the yolks of four eggs, stir again for a moment, cool, and use as required. (2) Take the flesh of a Lobster, the larger the better, and pound it in a mortar with half an anchovy, the yolk of a hard-boiled egg, a small piece of boiled celery, a little cayenne, and salt and pepper ; add | pint of finely-sifted breadcrumbs, 2oz. of butter, and two eggs to bind it. Form the forcemeat into small balls, put them into a frying-pan with a little butter, and fry to a light brown colour. A few oysters, if added, are a great improvement, For fish, soups, or stews, these balls are excellent. Lobster Fricassee. — (1) Select two moderately large Lobsters and partially boil them. Pick the flesh out of the claws and tails, and cut it into small pieces; put it into Lobster — continued. a saucepan with nearly 2 breakfast-cupfuls of bechamel sauce, and let the contents stew gently for ten minutes. Strain the juice of half a lemon in the fricassee, turn it on to a hot dish, and serve at once. (2) Take all the meat of a large Lobster, cut it into pieces about Jin. square, put them over the fire in a saucepan together with J pint of good veal broth or chicken broth (the broth ought to be quite a jelly) and a seasoning of pepper and salt, and let them simmer for five minutes ; then add 1 gill of cream, and when it is again at the point of boiling stir in loz. of butter; as soon as this is quite melted, take the saucepan from the fire, stir in quickly the strained juice of half a lemon, pour the fricassee into a covered dish, and serve. Boston crackers, split, toasted, and buttered hot, may be served with it. (3) Pick all the flesh out of the shell of a Lobster ; put 1 table-spoonful of butter in a stewpan with 1 table-spoonful of flour, stir it over the fire until mixed, then pour in 1 teacupful of cream and 2 scant teacupfuls of milk ; continue stirring over the fire until boiling. Move the stewpan to the edge of the fire, put in the Lobster-meat, season with salt, pepper, and a small quantity of cayenne pepper, and let the contents boil gently for fifteen minutes. Squeeze in the juice of one Lemon, turn the fricassee on to a hot dish, and serve. Lobster Fritters. — (1) Finely chop the meat of a Lobster and a few skinned prawns ; put them into a stewpan with a lump of butter, and toss over the fire until hot. Prepare some y 'ood paste, roll it out about Jin. in thickness, cut it into ' ounds with a tin cutter ljin. in diameter, put them into a flat stewpan of boiling lard or butter, and fry until nicely browned ; drain them, pile some of the Lobster mixture on each, arrange them on a hot dish over which has been spread a fancy-edged dish-paper, garnish with parsley, and serve.