To Serve Oyster Crabs.—Put on a small saucer a crisp but dry leaf of lettuce, and put in the centre of each leaf a scant tablespoonful of the oyster crabs. Add a scant teaspoonful of mayonnaise to each, and serve as a whet before a ladies’ collation, or at an afternoon luncheon.
Oyster-Crab Omelet.—This is a most tempting dish. Roll an ounce of butter into little balls, dredge these with flour, put them in a pan, and when they begin to melt whisk them; do not let it brown; add a gill of hot water, and simmer until thick; now add half a pint of oyster crabs, salt, and a pinch of cayenne. Beat up four eggs thoroughly, and make them into an omelet; just before folding, add the crabs, and serve.
Oyster-Crab Sauce.—Add a tablespoonful of oyster-crabs to half a pint of drawn butter, sauce hollandaise, or in fact any white or cream fish-sauce, and serve with boiled fish.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT.
The writer is deeply indebted to Prof. George Brown Goode’s compilation and reports of the “Fishery Industries of the United States,” for much of the natural history of fish and shell embodied in this work.
SHRIMPS.
The common shrimp, which is caught in immense quantities along our coast all summer, and used for bait, is a dainty which summer residents should not neglect. When a shrimp salad is wanted, however, the servant is sent to the nearest grocer for a can of Southern shrimp, and the delicious morsel at their very door is used to feed the fishes. The trouble seems to be, that servants dislike the trouble of picking them out of their transparent shells.
Summer hotels would buy the native shrimp if fishermen would take the trouble of offering them. No more appetizing or appropriate garnish for lobster salads and for portions of boiled fish can be imagined than the little home shrimp properly boiled. A plunge into the hot water is about all the cooking they need.
Market Price of Shrimps.—Cooked and shelled shrimps are to be had in our markets during warm weather, for from thirty to fifty cents per quart. Canned shrimps retail for from thirty to forty cents per can, and $3.50 per dozen. Rinse them in fresh water before using them.