A Few More Pictures

are now up on Flikr, nothing spectacular I'm afraid, but a good excuse to share the recipe for lobster loaves with you all:

To make Lobster-Loaves.

PICK out all the Meat of three little Lobsters shred it a little; take a piece of Butter, and brown it with Flour in a Sauce-pan: the stir in a very little Onion and Parsley shred very fine, and put in a little Pepper, a Spoonful of Anchovy Liquor, three or four Spoonfuls of good Gravy, three Yolks of Eggs well beat; stir all these over the Fire in the brown Butter, then put in the Lobster, and stir it a little together: Take three French Rolls, and cut a round Piece off the top of each, and pick out the Crumb, but do not Break Holes through the Sides of the Bread; fill up the Roll with the Mixture you have prepared; put on the Piece of Top you cut off, close and tie them round with a Piece of Tape: Make some Dripping boiling hot in your Frying-pan; and when you have just dipt the Roll in Milk, throw it in to the Pan-full of scalding Liquor: When they are crisp, take them out, and take off the Tape: Be sure to put in three times as much Parsly as Onion. Thus you may do Shrimp or Oyster-Loaves.



This comes from 'Above 300 Receipts' By Mary Kettilby from 1734 and is a heart attack inducing, artery hardening taste of heaven!
We've tried it with lobster and shrimp for the filling and tend to demonstrate it with prawns (simply for the ease with which you can buy them.) I can only suggest that you have a go at it.....I'm sure that you won't be disappointed.

Now that I've got family birthdays and a couple of technical niggles out of the way, it should be back to normal here. I'm currently working on the next cookery weekend in July - trying to sort out what we're going to be cooking; a couple of adult education courses at Hampton Court, along with transcribing a couple of cookery books.....so I should have enough to talk about for a while now.

Currently, the plan for July is to try experimenting with a few of the recipes. Trying out different variations with a small number of recipes, basically taking advantage of the loose interpretation that can be applied to the various recipes; trying to take some weights and measure some temperatures and stuff along those lines. Which recipes it will be I'm not quite sure yet, but rest assured that you'll all know as soon as I do!

By the way, comments will be replied to later today, but first I have to go and cook dinner!