James Beard's New Fish Cookery - James Beard [131]
GRATIN D’ÉCREVISSES
36 crawfish
Court bouillon or salted water
1/2 cup creamed butter
Sauce velouté (page 21)
Duchess potatoes, or rice or a croustade
Grated Gruyère or Parmesan cheese
Clean the crawfish (or not, as you prefer) and cook in a court bouillon (page 18) or in salted water. When they are cool enough to handle, remove the meat from the tails, and any meat from the bodies. Keep several of the shells for garnish. Grind the rest of the shells, or pound them in a mortar. Blend them with the creamed butter and force the mixture through a fine sieve.
Prepare a sauce velouté. Stir the crawfish butter into the sauce to color it and give it flavor. Add the crawfish meat and cook just long enough to heat it through.
Pour the crawfish mixture on a flameproof serving dish and surround it with a border of Duchess potatoes or rice. Or pour it into a large croustade, which you have made by hollowing out a loaf of bread and toasting it in the oven. Sprinkle the top with the grated cheese and decorate it with the whole shells. Run the dish under the broiler just long enough to melt the cheese and glaze the top.
COLD CRAWFISH, SPICED
Wash and clean the crawfish, being sure to pull off the tiny wing in the center of the tail. Cook them in a spicy court bouillon (page 18) for about 5 minutes — no more. Cool the crawfish in the court bouillon and let them stand in it for several hours. Serve cold with bread and butter — preferably rye bread — and either beer or a dry white wine, well chilled.
CRAWFISH RÉMOULADE
This is one of my favorites as a first course.
To serve 4 people, cook 36 crawfish in a court bouillon (page 18) and let them cool. When cool enough to handle, remove the meat from the tails. Chill it. To serve, arrange the crawfish meat on a bed of greens and accompany with a well-seasoned sauce rémoulade (page 35).
Lobster
Like Europeans, we are blessed with two types of shellfish called lobster. The “homard,” or lobster with claws, comes from the northern waters around Maine and Nova Scotia. The spiny, or rock, lobster is caught in southern waters, but is only a distant relative of the homard. Both varieties are superb eating, and the homard, especially, is one of the great delicacies of the sea.
The northern European homard is very much like ours, and their Mediterranean langouste resembles our rock lobster, although, to my taste, the Mediterranean variety has much sweeter meat. European lobster is not sold in our markets, but frozen rock lobster tails shipped from South Africa are now generally available and are very popular.
Our native lobsters can be bought whole and already boiled in most markets — or as cooked lobster meat in frozen tins. If you prefer to cook your own, as most people do, you buy a live lobster. Never cook a dead one. The larger the lobster the more likely it is to be tough. The small lobster is the true delicacy.
Some people object to plunging a lobster into boiling water or bouillon while it is still alive. Don’t let this process affect your appetite. Lobsters are most insensitive creatures. Killing them in hot water is almost instantaneous and certainly as merciful as any other method. True, they wriggle. It would be helpful if more American fish dealers would adopt the French custom of trussing the beasts with string when they sell them. This makes the task of popping the lobster into the pot much simpler.
The easiest way to prepare lobster is to boil it. It can be served hot with melted butter and lemon juice, or cold with mayonnaise or any other cold sauce.
BOILED LOBSTER
For a 1-to-11/2-pound lobster use 3 quarts of water and about 3 tablespoons of salt. Or you may use ocean water. Bring the water to a rolling boil. Grab the lobster from behind the head and plunge it into the water. Cover and let it simmer for 5 minutes for the first pound, and 3 minutes more for each additional pound.