Lobster Cutlets

Ingredients

• a moderate-sized lobster
• twice the quantity of butter
• a good pinch of cayenne pepper
• a piece of onion as big as the top of the thumb
• a small tea-spoonful of chopped parsley
• a piece of lemon-peel the size and thickness of the thumb-nail
• half a pint of melted butter
• half a salt-spoonful of anchovy sauce
• the same quantity of lemon-juice
• about two ounces of ordinary butter
• one egg is sufficient for the whole quantity
• some fine dry bread-crumbs
• boiling fat or lard

Method

1. 1

   Cut open the lobster and remove the meat, including claws.

2. 2

   Place meat in a cool place.

3. 3

   Pound the spawn and coral with butter and cayenne to make lobster butter.

4. 4

   Reserve some cut-up meat for sauce.

5. 5

   Pound remaining meat with onion, parsley, and lemon-peel.

6. 6

   Make thin melted butter with milk, add lobster butter, reserved meat, anchovy sauce, and lemon juice.

7. 7

   Mix pounded meat with lobster butter to form a thick pudding.

8. 8

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

9. 9

   Fry in boiling fat for about 2 minutes.

10. 10

    Insert claw pieces to represent bones and serve.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Common-sense papers on cookery (1880) by A. G. Payne, page 7. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

a moderate-sized lobster, and have a dish of lobster cutlets as an entred in addition to the sauce for the fish. Now, there are few prettier dishes than lobster cut- lets, and few easier to make, yet how rarely is it met with in small households ! First, get a lobster containing some spawn and coral. Cut open the lobster and remove the whole of the meat, including that in the claws, and cut it up into small pieces, and put it on a plate and place it in a cool place, to be used as we shall explain by-and-by. Next take the spawn and coral and place it in a mortar with about twice the quantity of butter, and pound it well together, adding a good pinch of cayenne pepper. You will by this means obtain what is called lobster butter, and without it it is impossible to make either good lobster sauce, or patties, or cutlets, or bisque — the latter being, in other words, lobster soup. This lobster butter has a strong lobster flavour, and is of an exceedingly brilliant colour. It will keep a long time, and good cooks should always try and have some by them, as ofttimes lobsters contain neither spawn or coral. Scrape all the lobster butter out of Com den P.L 26 Common-sense Cookery. the mortar, and place it in some small jar for use. Next (vve are supposing that eight persons are the number at dinner), take about a dessert-spoonful of the cut-up meat and put it by for the sauce — this quantity will be amply sufficient — -and take all the rest of the meat and place it in a mortar, and pound it up with the following materials, previously chopped very fine : a piece of onion as big as the top of the thumb down to the bottom of the nail, a small tea-spoonful of chopped parsley, and a piece of lemon-peel the size and thickness of the thumb-nail. But while these are being pounded, let us return to and finish making the lobster sauce. First, make a little rather thin melted butter, using milk instead of water ; add sufficient lobster butter to make it a bright red colour, this lobster butter containing as a rule sufficient cayenne pepper for the whole sauce. Add 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, Kitchen Economy. 27 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- made melted butter is apt to decompose 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, and lemon-peel in the proportions we have mentioned. Mix in sufficient lobster butter to make the whole mass appear of a bright-red colour — about a brimming tea-spoonful is generally sufficient to 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 sufficient 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

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