Throw a handful of salt into a pot of boiling water. When it boils very hard, put in the prawns. Let them boil a quarter of an hour, and when you take them out lay them on a sieve to drain, and then wipe them on a dry cloth, and put them aside till quite cold.
Lay a handful of curled parsley in the middle of a dish. Put one prawn on the top of it, and lay the others all round, as close as you can, with the tails outside. Garnish with parsley.
Eat them with salt, cayenne, sweet oil, mustard and vinegar, mixed together as for lobsters.
CRABS.
Crabs are boiled in the same manner, and in serving up may be arranged like prawns.
HOT CRABS.
Having boiled the crabs, extract all the meat from the shell, cut it fine, and season it to your taste with nutmeg, salt, and cayenne pepper. Add a bit of butter, some grated bread crumbs, and sufficient vinegar to moisten it. Fill the back-shells of the crab with the mixture; set it before the fire, and brown it by holding a red-hot shovel or a salamander a little above it.
Cover a large dish with small slices of dry toast with the crust cut off. Lay on each slice a shell filled with the crab. The shell of one crab will contain the meat of two.