Cut half a pound of the flesh of a boiled lobster into small dice. Put two ounces of butter into a stew-pan, and when it bubbles sprinkle in two ounces of flour (one table-spoonful). Cook it; then pour in a cupful of boiling cream and the lobster dice. Stir it until it is scalding hot; then take it from the fire, and, when slightly cooled, stir in the beaten yolks of three eggs, a grating of nutmeg, a little Cayenne pepper, and salt to taste. Return the mixture to the fire, and stir it long enough to well set the eggs.
Butter a platter, on which spread the lobster mixture half an inch deep. When cold, form it into the shape of chops, pointed at one end; bread-crumb, egg, and crumb them again, and fry them in boiling lard. Stick a claw into the end of each lobster chop after it is cooked.
Place the chops in a circle, overlapping each other, on a napkin. Decorate the dish by putting the tail of the lobster in the centre, and its head, with the long horns, on the tail. Around the outside of the circle of chops arrange the legs, cut an inch each side of the middle joints, so that they will form two equal sides of a triangle.
A Good Way to Prepare a Lobster.
Put into a saucepan butter the size of a small egg, and a tea-spoonful of minced onion. When it has cooked, sprinkle in a tea-spoonful of flour, which cook also; then stir in one cupful of the water in which the lobster was boiled, one cupful of milk, one cupful of strong veal or beef stock, pepper, and salt: add the meat of the boiled lobster, and when quite hot pour all in the centre of a hot platter. Decorate the dish with the lobster’s head in the centre, fried-bread diamonds (croûtons) around the outside; or in any prettier way you choose, with the abundant resources of lobster legs and trimmings.
FROGS.
Frogs are such a delicacy that it is a pity not to prepare them with care.
The hind legs only are used. They may be made into a broth the same as chicken broth, and are considered a very advantageous diet for those suffering with pulmonary affections.
Frogs Fried.
Put them in salted boiling water, with a little lemon-juice, and boil them three minutes; wipe them; dip them first in cracker-dust, then in eggs (half a cupful of milk mixed in two eggs and seasoned with pepper and salt), then again in cracker-crumbs. When they are all breaded, clean off the bone at the end with a dry cloth. Put them in a wire basket and dip them in boiling lard, to fry. Put a little paper (see page 61) on the end of each bone; place them on a hot platter, in the form of a circle, one overlapping the other, with French pease in the centre. Serve immediately, while they are still crisp and hot.