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Scalloped Lobster
2 lb. lobster 1 1/2 cups White Sauce II 1/2 teaspoon salt Few grains cayenne 2 teaspoons lemon juice Remove lobster meat from shell and cut in cubes. Heat in White Sauce and add seasonings. Refill lobster shells, cover with buttered crumbs, and bake until crumbs are brown. To prevent lobster shells from curling over lobster while baking, insert small wooden skewers of sufficient length to keep shell in its original shape. To assist in preserving color of shell, brush over with olive oil before putting into oven. Scalloped lobster may be baked in buttered scallop shells, or in a buttered baking dish.
A straightforward baked lobster in cream sauce, written for a cook who already had a white sauce on the stove. The two things the original assumes are the sauce formula and a cooked lobster.
- White Sauce IINumbered white sauces in books of this era generally run from thin to thick, so the second is most likely the medium one, somewhere in the region of 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons flour per cup of milk, cooked until it just coats a spoon. Check the book's own sauce table rather than relying on this; scaled to 1 1/2 cups it would be roughly 3 tablespoons each to 1 1/2 cups milk.
- The lobster is already cooked"Remove lobster meat from shell" presumes a boiled lobster, cooled enough to handle. A 2 lb lobster gives roughly 8 oz of picked meat.
- Oven and timeSet the oven to 400F. The filling is already hot, so you are only browning the top: 10 to 15 minutes is enough. Longer and the lobster tightens and turns cottony.
- Buttered crumbsDry, not fresh, breadcrumbs tossed with melted butter, about 2 tablespoons butter to a cup of crumbs. Fresh crumbs absorb the sauce and go pasty instead of crisp.
- Skewers in the shellThe advice is sound and easily skipped by accident. Body shells contract in dry heat and will fold over the filling; a pair of short bamboo skewers braced across the width holds them open.
- Oil on the shellBrushing the outside of the shell with olive oil keeps the red from dulling. It is purely cosmetic and matters only if you are serving in the shell.
- Cayenne"Few grains" means a pinch that you should not be able to identify in the finished dish, perhaps 1/16 teaspoon. Salt cautiously as well; the sauce and the lobster are both already seasoned to a degree.
- YieldOne 2 lb lobster, divided between its two shell halves or four scallop shells, serves two as a main course or four as a first course.