When the meat has been all extracted, scrape and wash the large back shell of the turtle till it is perfectly clean. Make a rich puff-paste. Roll it out thin, and line with it the bottom and sides, in fact the whole of the back-shell. Having prepared and seasoned the best pieces of the turtle-meat, as in the preceding receipt, stew them till thoroughly done, and very tender, and when cool, fill the shell with them. Have ready an upper lid of the same puff-paste, rolled out rather thick. Cover the pie with it. Unite the edges of the upper and under crusts, very neatly, wetting your fingers with water. Then notch them handsomely all round, and cut a cross slit in the centre of the top or cover. Set it directly into a rather quick oven. Bake the crust of a light brown, and send it to table hot.
LOBSTERS.—
If you buy a lobster ready boiled, see that his tail is stiff and elastic, so that when you bend it under, it springs back immediately; otherwise he is not fresh. If alive or unboiled, he will be lively and brisk in his motion when newly caught. The same with prawns, and crabs.
The heaviest lobsters are the best.
To boil a lobster, have ready a pot of fast-boiling water, very strongly salted. Put in the lobster head downward; and if the water is really hot (it is cruel to have it otherwise,) he will be dead in a moment. Crabs, of course, the same. A moderate sized lobster (and they are the best,) will be done in half an hour. A large one requires from three-quarters to an hour. Before it is sent to table, the large claws should be taken off, and laid beside it. The head also should be separated from the body, but laid so near it that the division is nearly imperceptible. The head is never eaten. Split the body, and lay it open all the way down, including the tail. If there is a good dresser of salads in the house, the lobster may be served up ready dressed, in a deep dish, seasoned with the proper condiments, after being cut small or minced, heaped up towards the centre of the dish, and decorated with the small claws laid across on the top, with the addition of green celery leaves, or parsley sprigs.
LOBSTER SALAD—
(plain.)—Take a well boiled lobster. Extract all the meat from the body and claws, cut it up small, and mash the coral with the back of a spoon or a broad knife. Wash the best part of a fresh lettuce, and cut that up also, omitting all the stalk. Mix together the chopped lobster and the lettuce, and put them into a salad bowl. Make the dressing in a deep plate, allowing for one lobster a salt-spoon of salt, half as much of cayenne, a tea-spoonful of made mustard, (tarragon mustard is best,) four table-spoonfuls (or more) of sweet oil, and three table-spoonfuls of the best cider vinegar. Mix all these together, with the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs, mashed to a soft moist paste with the other ingredients, adding the coral of the lobster. When they are all mixed smoothly, add them to the lobster and lettuce. If the mixture seems too dry, add more sweet oil. Toss and stir the salad with a box-wood fork. Also, the things should be mashed with a box-wood spoon. Cover, and set it in a cool place till wanted. It should be eaten as soon as possible after mixing, as it becomes flat by standing.
Plenty of sweet oil renders a lobster wholesome. Still, persons who are not in good health, had best abstain from lobster.