Pepper (To lobster meat add yolks)

The first entry here is a workable dish: cooked lobster meat bound with hard-cooked egg yolk and sauce, returned to the shells and browned. The second is an ingredient list for a creamed lobster-and-oyster filling, with quantities but no directions, so it needs to be reconstructed from standard practice.

• The hinge: the lobster is already cookedThe first entry clearly starts from boiled lobster picked from the shell (the second lists water, celery and onion, so it may involve cooking the lobster). The recipe gives no temperature or time, only "bake until crumbs are brown"; the oven step exists to brown the crumbs, so keep it short — a few minutes in a hot oven is enough, since longer turns the meat fibrous and dry.
• "Sauce" means white sauceMost likely a thick white sauce: butter and flour cooked together, then milk or cream. The second recipe's own 1/4 cup butter, 1/3 cup flour and 3/4 cup cream suggest the sort of proportions intended, though its liquid would also include the oyster liquor.
• Yolks rubbed to a pasteAlmost certainly hard-cooked yolks mashed smooth (a little butter helps). They act as a binder for the filling.
• Oysters need two minutesOysters want only brief heating -- The pint of oysters should be heated only until the edges ruffle. Any longer and they tighten; drain them and add their liquor to the sauce instead of boiling them in it.
• The 1 1/2 cups cold waterThat water, with the celery stalk and slice of onion, is a court bouillon for poaching or for a light stock from the lobster shells. Reduce it and use it in place of part of the cream if you want a stronger flavour.
• Oven temperatureThe recipe gives none. For crumbs to brown without overcooking the meat, a hot modern oven (in the region of 425F) or the broiler will do the job.
• Vol-au-vent and pattiesBoth are puff-pastry cases, baked blank and filled at the last moment. Fill them hot and serve at once; a cream filling standing in pastry softens the walls within minutes.