Of all fish belonging to the lobster species, shrimps are the smallest. In England, where they abound, they are sold by the quart, ready boiled. The way to eat them is to pull off the head, and squeeze the body out of the shell by pressing it between your fore-finger and thumb. At good tables they are only used as sauce for large fish, squeezed out of the shell, and stirred into melted butter.
LOBSTER SAUCE.—
Take a small hen lobster that has been well boiled. Extract all the meat, and chop it large. Take out the coral, and pound it smooth in a marble mortar, adding, as you proceed, sufficient sweet oil. Make some nice drawn butter, allowing half a pound of nice fresh butter to two heaped table-spoonfuls of flour, and a pint of hot water. Mix the butter and flour thoroughly, and then gradually add to them the coral, so as to give a fine color. Then mix this with a small pint of boiling water. Hold the saucepan over the fire, (shaking it about till it simmers) but do not let it quite boil. Put in the chopped lobster, and let that simmer in the sauce, till well heated. To allow it to boil will spoil the color, (which should be pale pink,) and may be improved by a little prepared cochineal. Or, you may tie, in a small bit of thin muslin, a few chips of alkanet, and put it into the sauce, (taking it out, of course, before it goes to table.) Alkanet communicates a beautiful pink color, and has no taste in itself.
This quantity of sauce is for a large fish—salmon, cod, turbot, or sheep's head. There should always be an ample supply of sauce. It is very awkward for the sauce to give out, before it has gone round the company.
BEEF.
ROASTING BEEF.—
The prime piece of beef for roasting is the sirloin; but being too large for a small family, the ribs are generally preferred, when there are but few persons to eat of it. So also is the baron, or double sirloin, undivided along the back. It is chiefly seen at great dinners. Except the sirloin and ribs, there are no very good roasting pieces, all the rest being generally used for stews, soups, &c., and for corning or salting. Unless the animal is a very fine one, the inferior pieces are apt to be tough, hard, and coarse. The round is the best piece for corning or salting, and for cooking, as beef a-la-mode, or converting into what, in England, is called rump-steaks. These steaks require a rolling-pin, before they can be made tender enough for good eating, or good digestion. The finest and tenderest steaks are those cut from the sirloin. The meat of a young well-fed heifer is very good; and that of an old ox, (that has done working, and afterwards been fattened well on plenty of wholesome food,) may be made of superior excellence. The lean of good fresh beef is of a bright red color, a fine close grain, and feels tender to the touch on pinching it between your thumb and finger. The fat is firm and very nearly white. The suet about the kidney, firm and quite white. If, on the contrary, the lean is coarse, tough, and of a dull color, and the fat scanty, yellow, and moist, do not buy that meat for any purpose. The same rules will apply to mutton. If the weather is so cold that the meat is frozen, thaw it by lying it all night or early in the morning in a tub of cold water. If thawed in water the least warm, the meat will spoil, and be rendered unfit to eat. Meat that has been frozen, requires a much longer time to cook, than if that accident had not happened. All frozen animals must be thawed in cold water previous to cooking. Cold roast-beef is much liked in England. In America, where meat is more abundant, and therefore less costly, it is not considered a proper dish to place before a visitor; therefore, in our country, a large piece is seldom cooked with a view to next day's dinner. We prefer smaller pieces, always served up fresh and hot. Beef for roasting, should be well washed in plenty of cold water; then dried with a clean cloth. Prepare the fire, in time to be burning well, when the meat is put down. It should have plenty of hot coals, and no part of the fire black, ashy, or smoky, and the hearth swept very clean: for no sweeping must go on while the meat (or any thing else) is cooking. The spit should always be kept perfectly clean, when not in use; and well washed, wiped, and rubbed immediately after using. Run it evenly into the meat, which will hang crooked if not well balanced. When first put down, take care not to set it at once too close to the fire, but place it rather more than two feet distant, that the meat may heat gradually. If too near the fire at first, the outside will scorch, and leave the inside red and bloody. Underdone meat (foolishly called rare) is getting quite out of fashion, being unwholesome and indigestible, and to most Americans its savour is disgusting. To ladies and children it is always so, and even the English have ceased to like it. It is now seldom seen but at those public tables, where they consider it an object to have as little meat as possible eaten on the first day, that more may be left for the second day, to be made into indescribable messes, with ridiculous French names, and passed off as French dishes, by the so-called French cook, who is frequently an Irishman.
At first, baste the meat as soon as it begins to roast, with a little fresh butter, or fresh dripping saved from yesterday's beef. Then, when its own fat begins to drip, baste it with that, all the while it is cooking. Gradually move it nearer to the fire, turning the spit round frequently, so that the meat may be cooked equally on all sides. When it is nearly done, sprinkle it slightly, with a little salt. When it is quite done, and you take it from the spit, put it on a large hot dish, and keep it warm while you skim the gravy, thoroughly, so as to remove all the fat. Then mix in the gravy a small tea-cup full of hot water, and thicken it with a very little browned flour. Send it to table very hot.