Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Lobster salad

Ingredients:

1 hen lobster, lettuces, endive, small salad (whatever is in season),
a little chopped beetroot, 2 hard-boiled eggs, a few slices of cucumber.

For dressing, equal quantities of oil and vinegar, 1 teaspoonful of
made mustard, the yolks of 2 eggs; cayenne and salt to taste;
3 teaspoonful of anchovy sauce.

These ingredients should be mixed perfectly smooth, and form a creamy-
looking sauce.

Wash the salad, and thoroughly dry it by shaking it in a cloth.
Cut up the lettuces and endive, pour the dressing on them, and
lightly throw in the small salad.

Mix all well together with the pickings from the body of the lobster;
pick the meat from the shell, cut it up into nice square pieces, put
half in the salad, the other half reserve for garnishing. Separate
the yolks from the whites of 2 hard-boiled eggs; chop the whites very
fine, and rub the yolks through a sieve, and afterwards the coral from
the inside. Arrange the salad lightly on a glass dish, and garnish,
first with a row of sliced cucumber, then with the pieces of lobster,
the yolks and whites of the eggs, coral, and beetroot placed alternately,
and arranged in small separate bunches, so that the colours contrast nicely.

Note. A few crayfish make a pretty garnishing to lobster salad.

To boil lobsters

Ingredients:- 1/4 lb. of salt to each gallon of water.

Mode:- Medium-sized lobsters are the best. Have ready a
stewpan of boiling water, salted in the above proportion;
put in the lobster, and keep it boiling quickly from 20
minutes to 3/4 hour, according to its size, and do not
forget to skim well.

If it boils too long, the meat becomes thready, and if not
done enough, the spawn is not red: this must be obviated by
great attention. Hub the shell over with a little butter or
sweet oil, which wipe off again.

Time. Small lobster, 20 minutes to 1/2 hour; large ditto,
1/2 to 1/3 hour.