Lobster Cutlets

Ingredients

• the dessert-spoonful of lobster meat
• about half a salt-spoonful of anchovy sauce
• the same quantity of lemon-juice
• half a pint of melted butter
• about two ounces of ordinary butter
• a well-beaten-up egg
• some fine dry bread-crumbs
• boiling fat or lard

Method

1. 1

   Pound the lobster meat with chopped onion, parsley, and lemon-peel.

2. 2

   Mix in lobster butter until bright-red.

3. 3

   Add ordinary butter to create a thick pudding.

4. 4

   Mould into small oval pieces, dip in beaten egg, then in bread-crumbs.

5. 5

   Fry in boiling fat for about two minutes and drain.

6. 6

   Insert small pieces of lobster claws to represent bones and place in the oven for a few minutes before serving.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Practical home cookery (1906) by A. G. Payne, page 9. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

the dessert-spoonful of lobster meat, about half a salt -spoonful of anchovy sauce, and the same quantity of lemon-juice, and the sauce is complete. The quantity of melted butter made should be regulated by the size of the ladle in the sauce-tureen. There are over twelve ordinary ladlefuls in half a pint ; as a rule each person takes one ladleful, therefore half a pint of lobster sauce is more than sufficient for eight persons. If you don’t want waste, tell your cook to pour a tumblerful of water into a sauce-tureen, and see how much it looks, and never to make more melted butter for eight or even ten persons. The melted butter should not be made, however, until it is nearly dinner- time, as properly-mzAo. melted butter is apt to decom- pose or run oily if exposed to heat too long. And now, let us return to the rest of the lobster, which we left being pounded in the mortar, and to which have been added the chopped onion, parsley, KITCHEN ECONOMY. 23 and lemon-peel in the proportions we have mentioned. Mix in sufl&cient lobster butter to make the whole mass appear of a bright-red colour — about a brimming tea-spoonful is generally sufficient for a medium-sized lobster. After this add some ordinary butter about two ounces — but, of course, the quantity must vary with the size and meatiness of the lobster, but suffi- cient must be added to make the whole quantity into a sort of thick pudding, which when struck with a table-spoon makes a noise like — slosh. Next mould the mass into a quantity of small pieces, the size and shape of an oval pic-nic biscuit. This moulding is best done with the hands, by throw- ing the piece from one palm into the other. Dip each piece in a well-beaten-up egg — of course, one egg is sufficient for the whole quantity — and then into some fine dry bread-crumbs. Fry in some boiling fat or lard for about two minutes, and put each piece on a cloth to drain for a few minutes in front of the fire. Stick a small piece of the end of the small claws of the lobster — say about three-quarters of an inch long — into each, to represent the bone of the cutlet, and the dish is complete, though it had better be put into the oven for four or five minutes just before serving. When lobsters are cheap, the cost of these pretty Httle red cutlets varies from one penny to three-halfpence each. I once made twenty from a lobster that cost one shilling and sixpence. There are many ignorant people, who on seeing such a dish would imagine that it must be a very extravagant one ; and yet these same persons would think nothing of having a dish of six or eight ordinary mutton cutlets handed round as an entree, costing at least sixpence each. Besides, there is no comparison in the appearance of the two dishes. There are, perhaps, few entrees more invariably passed 24 PRACTICAL HOME COOKERY. by at dinner parties than mutton cutlets, unless dressed ones, which, especially when truffles are used, are very expensive, A dish of bright-red lobster cutlets

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.