Henrietta Sowle

“Ah, you flavor everything; you are the vanilla of society.”

ABOUT the only time when I am really anxious to have the right to vote is when some legislation tending toward the preservation of the lobster is on the docket. Then, if I had the opportunity, I should not only vote with both hands for a “close season” on that delectable shellfish, but I should lecture as long as I could get any one to listen to me, either on Boston Common or in Faneuil Hall, in an endeavor to induce others, men and women, to vote with me. I believe I should even resort to bribery where I thought it would do—and I am a fair judge of individuals who don’t require their “inducements” to be too heavily coated with sugar—in order to put it through.

As matters are now there are almost as many ways for preparing lobster as there are lobsters in the sea, and in order to try them all you would better be about it before the supply is utterly exhausted, or some one in authority calls “time.”

For devilling lobsters I have a budget of recipes, but this seems to be about the best one in the lot: Split the lobster, after it is boiled, in two lengthwise, and put it into a baking-pan; season with salt and cayenne, and pour over it plenty of melted butter, and bake in a hot oven for five minutes. Just before serving spread over it a sauce of melted butter thickened with flour and seasoned with a few drops of lemon juice, a sprinkling of mustard, and a little Madeira or sherry wine.

Lest you should get so attached to this devilled lobster of mine, I hasten to put here an alluring sounding recipe, hoping you may be induced to try it before forming the devilled lobster habit. First fry a sliced onion in enough butter so that there will be no browning of it. Take out the onion in two or three minutes, as it is only intended to flavor the butter, and then fry in this butter the diced meat of two boiled lobsters for two or three minutes. Sprinkle in some chopped parsley and salt and pepper as you like it. Pour over the lobster a pint of white wine, and as soon as this gets to the boiling point take out the lobster and put it on slices of toast. Into the boiling wine put all the butter from the lobsters, just a few chopped mushrooms, if they are at hand, and pour over the slices of lobster toast. Have this just as hot as possible when sending to table, and you will find the alluringness of this dish is not in the telling of it only.

A lobster tartlet is a gastronomical dream, let me tell you, while we are on the subject, and after you try it you will be telling the same story. You should have tartlet moulds made of the very best puff paste, which you fill with diced cold boiled lobster, chopped cooked mushrooms, a caper or two, and a bit of mayonnaise.

Lobster À la Newberg is such a staple dish that it seems almost like plagiarizing something or somebody to put it on record here. However, as no list of lobster dishes is correct without it, here it shall go. Cut the boiled lobster into two-inch pieces and fry over a tremendously hot fire, either in a chafing dish or on a range, for just two or three seconds; lessen the heat then, or pull the frying-pan into cooler quarters, while you cover the lobster with thick, rich cream. Let this come to a threat to boil, then stir in say three egg yolks to a pint of cream, the yolks stirred in a little cream, till it thickens a bit. Just a dash of sherry, say two tablespoonfuls, and there you are.

For stuffing lobster tails cut the meat of the lobsters up rather finely, and add to it half its quantity of mushrooms. Fry in butter a bit, dilute with a little cream, season highly with cayenne and salt and fill the half tails with the mixture. Coat with bread crumbs that have been stirred about in melted butter, and brown in a hot oven.

The making of lobster croquettes is a pleasant sort of business, for there is so much anticipation of good to come stirred in with it. Cut the meat—don’t chop it—rather finely: moisten with a bit of cream and the butter from the lobster. Mould and roll in crumbs and fry a golden brown. Don’t go to seasoning these croquettes very highly or the delicacy will depart from them. But you know that. And do you know that you may add to almost any sauce used for boiled or baked fish some diced cooked lobster to the benefit of everything and everybody concerned? Well, you may—my word for it. If I were to tack a sub-title to this screed it might very properly be: “Women’s Luncheons,” inasmuch as it was in aid of one of these mild social dissipations that I last perambulated through the markets. Very properly also I might characterize the trip as a “peripatetic wandering through the market-place,” for all the while I was in quest of edibles suitable to put before a purely feminine company I was talking to myself about the probable origin of this form of hospitality. When, where, and by whom it was invented? My own conjecture as to its inception finally took this course: Algernon was in the habit of attending a great many goings-on to which women were never bidden. And Araminta frequently discussed with him the calls thus made upon his time. Whereupon it came to pass that after one particularly interesting debate on the subject, which debate was brought to an end by the sharp, quick closing of the street door, Araminta had an idea. An idea which she called an inspiration, nothing less, and it had for its starting-point a luncheon, a dainty, gay little affair, at which no black coat should be allowed to intrude. And the piÈce de rÉsistance of the meal should be a sweet called “revenge.” Oh, yes indeed, not only would her guests applaud her originality, but the hearts of the absent males would be torn to tatters at her assumption of independence. And doubtless Part One of the programme was carried out to the letter, but, between you and me, I don’t believe Algernon ever lost a wink of sleep over it. In fact, when he settled the bill I have good reasons for mistrusting that he said something about the “game being jolly well worth the candle.”

But to-day the women’s luncheon is an institution, and a very chic and dainty diversion into the bargain. And there are those who make it their business to tell how a woman should be arrayed at such a festivity, but that is out of my province. If, however, you would know how the menu should read at this time of year, allow me:—

Cantaloupe.
Bouillon in cups.
Lobster patties.
Lamb cutlets with mushrooms.
String beans fried in butter.
Broiled quails.
Tomatoes stuffed with celery and mayonnaise.
Wine ice cream.Grapes.Coffee.

I almost said oysters at the beginning of the menu, but oysters we shall have with us for several months to come, while cantaloupes are beginning to say it’s about time they were going. As yet, however, they are just as delicious and no more expensive than they have been at any time through the season.

Now as for bouillon. I get it canned, and think myself very fortunate in being able to do so. But you may prefer to make your own, and if so you probably have an always reliable recipe. Mes congratulations.

But if you have a score of recipes for making lobster patties, I honestly believe you will follow the one I am pleased to give you herein. I take myself very seriously, you see. Well, prepare some of the very best puff paste that you know how to make. Roll it out on a floured table; with a fluted cutter cut out some rounds, put them on a baking dish, set them on ice for fifteen minutes, then brush them over with beaten egg. With a plain tin cutter of about half the size of the fluted cover cut through a third of each of the rounds, dipping the cutter in warm water every time; this will form the cover when baked. Bake in a quick oven. When cooked lift off the cover and scoop out a little of the soft paste inside. For the lobster filling take the meat from a boiled lobster, cut it into very small pieces and fry a little in butter, in a very little butter, till they just threaten to brown. Then pour over the lobster bits enough thick cream to barely cover them; heat this, but don’t let it boil. Thicken it with two or more beaten eggs, according to the quantity of lobster. Season delicately with salt and a suspicion of cayenne. Have the patties hot and the lobster hot, and arrange them on a hot dish for serving. For dear knows that a cold or a lukewarm patty is an abomination.

After the patties the lamb cutlets. And, mind you, they are to be fried, not broiled. Season them well with salt and pepper, and fry in a little butter over a brisk fire till browned on both sides. Then drain off the butter and baste them with just a little Madeira wine. Dress the cutlets in a circle and pour into the centre a Madeira sauce with mushrooms. This you make by heating half a pint of any good stock, adding to it a gill of Madeira, thickening it with a little flour braided with butter, and adding at the last a dozen mushrooms that have been minced and fried moderately in a little butter. You may use sherry instead of the Madeira for basting the cutlets and for the sauce if you like. And also you may use the tinned instead of fresh mushrooms if you prefer to do so. For fresh mushrooms may not be any too plenty just now, and consequently are a thought expensive. Still, they’re quite worth the price.

And now that the “law’s off” probably hereabouts on quail, you will find them in pretty good condition. Indeed, they are so good that I hope you will just have them broiled after salting a bit, and pin your faith to their own delicious flavor to give delight to your guests. Have them served on toast, if you must, that has been slightly buttered, but forget to serve any jelly with them.

I’ve told you elsewhere all about tomatoes stuffed with celery and mayonnaise, so I won’t go into particulars this time. But tomatoes will not be with us at the prices for which we can now get them a great while longer, and celery is remarkably good in quality and low in price. So there’s a good broad hint for you.

That wine ice cream which I have recommended is truly a delightful confection. You have a pint of moderately rich cream, and you add to it the yolks of five eggs and three tablespoonfuls of sugar, and then you heat it just a trifle. Next you stir in a gill of white wine, and then you freeze it. When quite frozen stir into it some chopped preserved cherries. Then turn the cream into a mould packed in ice to set till time for serving, when it is to be turned out on a cold dish. Doesn’t that sound as if it would be worth a trial?

You see I’ve simply said grapes in the menu because, as far as that fruit is concerned just now, it is a case of paying your money and taking your choice.

And what will the ladies have to drink? Suppose we say a sip of sherry with the bouillon and a bottle of pretty good Rhine wine to be brought in with the cutlets. And it doesn’t seem to me that it would be overdoing the matter to have a cordial finale—say crÈme yvette, or crÈme de cacao À la vanille.

Of course, I will tell you the approximate cost of such a luncheon. With good management it can be served, inclusive of the wines, for twelve dollars for a dozen persons. And that is not bad, now, is it?

Didn’t you just enjoy that cooling little entr’acte we had in July? I did. Let’s have another. We will not have anything sweet in this, however, we will have it cold and savory. Doesn’t that hit you favorably? There are plenty of cold and dainty savories that may come to table as your chief dish at luncheon or at dinner or as an entrÉe only, at the latter meal, according to the degree with which you manage to put on style.

There’s chicken cream, for instance, made from a cold boiled or roasted—well, bird. I don’t know whether it’s chicken or fowl. Perhaps you paid for chicken and got fowl. Perhaps you paid for fowl and wheedled the provisioner into giving you chicken. But we will say chicken, anyway. Pick, then, all the flesh from the chicken, mince and then pound it. Now add to it half a pint of cream stiffly whipped and half a pint of just liquid aspic jelly. Season with salt and white pepper and any other condiment if you like. Then have one large or several small moulds and line them with aspic jelly and fill with the chicken cream. Let set till cold and stiff and then unmould on slices of very thin fried bread. Chop parsley and sprinkle over the creams when unmoulded.

Another way would be to line the moulds with liquid aspic and a little tomato sauce. When this sets fill with the chicken cream as before. If you like the cream may be omitted from the chicken and when it is unmoulded it may be covered with a French dressing or with mayonnaise.

Any remains of cold meat can be chopped finely, mixed with shredded lettuce or watercress or parsley, capers, stoned olives, a truffle or two and mayonnaise, with enough liquid aspic to stiffen it and moulded in any way.

These do make delicious presentations of old subjects—just a little labor and a little inventive painstaking and you have accomplished wonders. There are so many garnishes that may be used with these cold things to make them more of a delight that it is impossible to go through the list. Sliced tomatoes or cucumbers or some cold cooked vegetable with a French dressing—any quantity of them you see once you begin to cast about for them.

No one knows better than I do that to make the conventional aspic jelly is a labor that involves terrible risks as regards the breaking of the commandment concerning profanity. I don’t mind telling you that I found it was having such a degenerating effect on my whole moral nature that I hit upon using just the best gelatine I can buy—this is not the place to name it, however—and dissolving it in a clear stock—white or brown as the case demands. Try it in making these aspic things.

You know, of course, that cold cutlets are the most impossible left-over thing with which the housekeeper has to deal. But prepare some savory jelly with stock and tomato sauce and coat these left-over cutlets with it some day and have them for luncheon. You will confess that you have learned something worth knowing.

Then there are numberless kinds of fish, almost any kind in fact that doesn’t run to bone, that will flake well; dip the pieces in a jelly of this kind diluted with any kind of sauce—Hollandaise, vinaigrette, tomato, and so on to the end of the list. Now, mind, when I say coat these viands with this jelly I don’t mean for you to give them a regular ulster for a coat—but a little thin diaphanous jacket, suitable for hot weather, you understand.

When you can use cream in the jellies, either whipped or straight, the daintiness of them is increased by just so much.

There are some kinds of game—dark game especially—that you may slice and coat with this jelly using currant jelly with it also and get some combinations that will drive your friends to despair.

Bear in mind that these jellied things must be kept on ice till served and the plates on which they are served must also be ice-cold. It does seem too bad for me to have to burden my soul with such instructions for you—they should be needless. But when good fortune takes me to luncheon in a crack hotel and I get my salad on a hot plate, or a hot plate set before me for the serving of it, I am forced to the conclusion that the mental lightweights are still in evidence and there’s no knowing but what some of them in a moment of lucidity may become the owner of this book. Therefore I go into tiresome details, occasionally.