The accomplisht cook: or, The art & mystery of cookery

out of the shell, and mince the claws with a good fresh eel, season it with cloves, mace, some sweet herbs chopped, and salt, mingle all together with some yolks of eggs, some grapes, gooseberries, or barberres, and sometimes boil'd artichocks in dice-work, or boil'd asparagus, some almond-paste, the meat of the body of the crab, and some grated bread, fill the shells with this compound, & make some into balls, bake them in a dish with some butter and white wine in a soft oven; being baked, serve them in a clean dish with a sauce made of beaten butter, large mace, scalded grapes, gooseberries, or barberries, or some slic't orange or lemon and some yolks of raw eggs dissolved with some white-wine or claret, and beat up thick with butter; brew it well together, pour it on the fish, and lay on some slic't lemon, stick the balls with some pistaches, slic't almonds, pine-apple-seed, or some pretty cuts in paste. _To broil Crabs in Oyl or Butter._ Take Crabs being boil'd in water and salt, steep them in oyl and vinegar, and broil them on a gridiron on a soft fire of embers, in the broiling baste them with some rosemary branches, and being broil'd serve them with the sauces they were boil'd with, oyl and vinegar, or beaten butter, vinegar, and the rosemary branches they were basted with. _To fry Crabs._ Take the meat out of the great claws being first boiled, flour and fry them, and take the meat out of the body strain half of it for sauce, and the other half to fry, and mix it with grated bread, almond paste, nutmeg, salt, and yolks of eggs, fry it in clarified butter, being first dipped in batter, put in a spoonful at a time; then make sauce with wine-vinegar, butter, or juyce of orange, and grated nutmeg, beat up the butter thick, and put some of the meat that was strained into the sauce, warm it and put it in a clean dish, lay the meat on the sauce, slices of orange over all,