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Lobster Souffle
2 lb. lobster 3 tablespoons mayonnaise 1 cup aspic jelly 1/2 cup Tomato Sauce 1/2 teaspoon Tarragon vinegar Cut the lobster into small pieces; put bands of writing paper, about two inches high, around as many ramequin cases as you wish to serve. Beat mayonnaise, aspic jelly, and Tomato Sauce together until they begin to look white. Stir in the pieces of lobster, add the vinegar. Fill the ramequin cases and put away to stiffen in a very cold place. When set, take off the papers carefully, garnish with pounded coral or browned crumbs.
Despite the name, nothing here goes into an oven. This is a cold set mousse in the French style, and the whole method hangs on the aspic being liquid but nearly cool when it meets the mayonnaise.
- The hinge: temperature of the aspicThe aspic must be melted and then cooled to just above setting point — barely warm to the fingertip — before beating. Too hot and it thins the mayonnaise and may split it; too cool and it sets in strings before the lobster is folded in.
- "Souffle" here means cold and aeratedThe name was used in this period for chilled savoury mousses set in paper-collared moulds, so that they stood above the rim in imitation of a risen baked one. Beating "until they begin to look white" means whipping air in until the mixture pales and thickens.
- Ramequin cases and paper bandsRamequins are small individual dishes, roughly 4 to 6 oz — modern ramekins are the same thing. Parchment or baking paper stands in for writing paper; cut strips two inches high, wrap so they project above the rim, and secure with kitchen twine or tape.
- Aspic jellyA cup of savoury jelly made from clarified fish or veal stock with gelatine. If you are not making stock aspic, a cup of well-flavoured fish stock set with about 2 teaspoons of powdered gelatine gives a comparable firmness for a mousse of this size.
- 2 lb. lobsterThat is live weight, not meat weight — a 2 lb lobster yields roughly 8 oz of picked cooked meat. The recipe assumes the lobster is already boiled; nothing in this method cooks it.
- Mayonnaise and raw eggPeriod mayonnaise was made fresh with raw yolks and this dish is never heated. Use a commercial mayonnaise, or one made with pasteurised egg, and keep the finished souffles refrigerated until they are served.
- CoralThe dark green roe of a hen lobster, which turns coral red on cooking; it was dried and pounded to a powder for garnish. Supermarket lobster rarely comes with it, so the browned crumbs given as the alternative are the practical choice.
- Tarragon vinegarStill sold, and worth having. Half a teaspoon is a seasoning note, not a dressing — add it last and taste, since the mayonnaise already carries acid.
- Setting time and yield"A very cold place" means the refrigerator; allow at least 3 to 4 hours, and overnight is safer before the collars come off. The quantities fill about six small ramekins as a first course.
Cold moulded mousses of shellfish bound with aspic and mayonnaise were a fixture of grand hotel and club cooking around the turn of the twentieth century, when commercial leaf and powdered gelatine had become cheap and reliable enough for a home kitchen to attempt what had previously required long reduction of calf's foot or isinglass. The paper collar is a direct borrowing from the baked souffle, a piece of visual trickery meant to give a chilled dish the same lofty silhouette on the buffet table. Lobster in any form marked the upper end of a household's ambitions.