The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory;

Lobster Curry Powder

Eleven ounces of coriander seed, six drachms of cayenne pepper, one ounce of cummin, one ounce and a half of black pepper, one ounce and a half of turmeric, three drachms of cloves, two drachms of cardamoms.

Lobster Patés

Rub two ounces of butter well into half a pound of flour; add one yolk of an egg and a little water, and make it into a stiff paste. Sheet your paté moulds very thin, fill them with crumbs of bread, and bake lightly. Turn out the crumbs and save them. Cut your lobster small; add to it a little white sauce, and season with pepper and salt. Take care that it is not too thin. Fill your moulds; cover with the crumbs which you saved, and a quarter of an hour before dinner put them into the oven to give them a light colour.

Oyster patés are done the same way.

Lobster Salad

Boil a cauliflower, pull it in pieces, and put it in a dish with a little pepper, salt, and vinegar. Have four or five hard-boiled eggs, boiled beet-root, small salad, and some anchovies, nicely cleaned and cut in lengths. Put a layer of small salad at the bottom of the dish, then a layer of the cauliflower, then the eggs cut in slices, then the beet, and so on. Take the claws and tail of the lobster, cut as whole as possible, and trim, to be laid on the top. The trimmings and what you can get out may be put in at the time you are laying the cauliflower, &c. in the dish. Make a rich salad sauce with a little elder vinegar in it, and pour it over. Lay the tails and claws on the top, and cross the shreds of the anchovies over them.

Mackarel à la maitre d’hotel

Boil the fish, and then put it in a stewpan, with a piece of butter and sweet herbs. Set it on the fire till the butter becomes oil.

Mackarel, to boil

Boil them in salt and water with a little vinegar. Fennel sauce is good to eat with them, and also coddled gooseberries.

Mackarel, to broil

You may split them or broil them whole; pepper and salt them well. For sauce, scald some mint and fennel, chop them small; then melt some butter and put your herbs in. You may scald some gooseberries and lay over your mackarel.

Mackarel, to collar

Collar them as eels, only omit the sage, and add sweet herbs, a little lemon-peel, and seasoning to your taste.

Mackarel, to fry

For frying you may stuff the fish with crumbs of bread, parsley well chopped, lemon-peel grated, pepper and salt, mixed with yolk of egg. Serve up with anchovy or fennel sauce.

Mackarel, to pickle

Cut the mackarel into four or five pieces; season them very high; make slits with a penknife, put in the seasoning, and fry them in oil to a good brown colour. Drain them very dry; put them into vinegar, if they are to be kept for any time; pour oil on the top.

Mackarel, to pot

Proceed in the same manner as with eels.

Mackarel, to souse

Wash and clean your fish: take out the roes, and boil them in salt and water; when enough, take them out and lay them in the dish; pour away half the liquor they were boiled in, and add to the rest of the liquor as much vinegar as will cover them and two or three bay leaves. Let them lie three days before they are eaten.

Mackarel Pie

Cut the fish into four pieces; season them to your taste with pepper, salt, and a little mace, mixed with a quarter of a pound of beef suet, chopped fine. Put at the bottom and top, and between the layers of fish, a good deal of young parsley, and instead of water a little new milk in the dish for gravy. If you like it rich, warm about a quarter of a pint of cream, which pour in the pie when baked; if not, have boiled a little gravy with the heads. It will take the same time to bake as a veal pie.

Mullet, to boil

Let them be boiled in salt and water, and, when you think them done enough, pour part of the water from them, and put a pint of red wine, two onions sliced, some nutmeg, salt, and vinegar, beaten mace, a bunch of sweet herbs, and the juice of a lemon. Boil all these well together, with two or three anchovies; put in your fish; and, when they have simmered some time, put them into a dish and strain the sauce over. If you like, shrimps or oysters may be added.

Mullet, to broil

Let the mullet be scaled and gutted, and cut gashes in their sides; dip them in melted butter, and broil them at a great distance from the fire. Sauce – anchovy, with capers, and a lemon squeezed into it.

Mullet, to fry

Carefully scale and gut the fish, score them across the back, and then dip them into melted butter. Melt some butter in a stewpan; let it clarify. Fry your mullet in it; when done, lay them on a warm dish. Sauce – anchovy and butter.

Oysters, to stew

Take a quart of large oysters; strain the liquor from them through a sieve; wash them well, and take off the beards. Put them in a stewpan, and drain the liquor from the settlings. Add to the oysters a quarter of a pound of butter mixed with flour and a gill of white wine, and grate in a little nutmeg with a gill of cream. Keep them stirred till they are quite thick and smooth. Lay sippets at the bottom of the dish; pour in your oysters, and lay fried sippets all round.

Another way

Put a quarter of a pound of butter into a clean stewpan, and let it boil. Strain a pint of oysters from their liquor; put them into the butter; and let them stew with some parsley minced small, a little shalot shred small, and the yolks of three eggs well beaten up with the liquor strained from the oysters. Put all these together into the stewpan with half a pound more butter; shake it and stew them a little; if too much, you make the oysters hard.

Oysters, ragout of

Twenty-five oysters, half a table-spoonful of soy, double the quantity of vinegar, a piece of butter, and a little pepper, salt, and flour.

Oysters, to pickle

Blanch the oysters, and strain off the liquor; wash the oysters in three or four waters; put them into a stewpan, with their liquor and half a pint of white wine vinegar, two onions sliced thin, a little parsley and thyme, a blade of mace, six cloves, Jamaica pepper, a dozen corns of white pepper, and salt according to your taste. Boil up two or three minutes; let them stand till cold; then put them into a dish, and pour the liquor over them.

Oyster Patés. No. 1

Stew the oysters in their own liquor, but do not let them be too much done; beard them; take a table-spoonful of pickled mushrooms, wash them in two or three cold waters to get out the vinegar; then cut each mushroom into four, and fry them in a little butter dusted over with flour. Take three table-spoonfuls of veal jelly, and two spoonfuls of cream; let it boil, stirring all the while; add a small bit of butter. Season with a pinch of salt, and one of cayenne pepper. Throw the oysters, which you have kept warm in a cloth near the fire, into the sauce; see that it is all hot; then have the patés ready, fill them with the oysters and sauce, and put a top on each. When the paste of oyster patés is done, remove the tops gently and cleanly with a knife; take out the flaky part of the paste inside and from the inside of the top; cut six little pieces of bread square so as to fill the inside; lay on the top of the paste. Then place them on a sheet of paper in a dish, and put them before the fire, covering them with a cloth to keep them hot. When you are going to serve them take out the piece of bread, and fill the patés with the oysters and sauce.

Oyster Patés. No. 2

Spread some puff-paste about half an inch thick. Cut out six pieces with a small tea-cup. Rub a baking sheet over with a brush dipped in water, and put the patés on it at a little distance from each other. Glaze them thoroughly with the yolk and white of egg mixed up; open a hole at the top of each with a small knife; cut six tops of the size of a crown-piece, and place them lightly on the patés. Let them be baked, and when done remove the tops, and place the crust on paper till ready to serve up; then fill them with oysters (as described in the preceding recipe) put the tops over them, and dish them upon a folded napkin.

Oyster Patés. No. 3

Parboil your oysters, and strain them from their liquor, wash the beard, and cut them in flour. Put them in a stewpan, with an ounce of butter rolled in flour, half a gill of cream, and a little grated lemon-peel, if liked. Free the oyster liquor from sediment, reduce it by boiling to one half; add cayenne pepper and salt. Stir it over the fire, and fill your patés.

Oyster Loaves

Cut out the crumb of three French rolls; lay them before the fire till they are hot through, turning them often. Melt half a pound of butter; put some into the loaves; put on their tops, and boil them till they are buttered quite through. Then take a pint of oysters, stewed with half a pint of water, one anchovy, a little pepper and salt, a quarter of a pound of butter, and as much sauce as will make your sauce thick. Give it a boil. Put as many oysters into your loaves as will go in; pour the rest of the sauce all over the loaves in the dish in which they are served up.

Oyster Pie

Beard the oysters; scald and strain them from their liquor, and season the liquor with pepper, salt, and anchovy, a lump of butter, and bread crumbs. Boil up to melt the anchovies; then just heat your oysters in it; put them all together into your pie-dish, and cover them with a puff-paste.

If you put your oysters into a fresh pie, you must cover them at the top with crisped crumbs of bread; add more to the savouring if you like it.