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Lobster à la Muisset
Cut two one and one-half pound live lobsters in pieces for serving, remove intestinal vein and lady, and crack large claws. Cook one tablespoon finely chopped shallot and three tablespoons chopped carrot in two tablespoons butter ten minutes, stirring constantly that carrots may not burn. Add two sprigs thyme, one-half bay leaf, two red peppers from pepper sauce, one teaspoon salt, one and one-third cups Brown Stock, two-thirds cup stewed and strained tomatoes, and three tablespoons Sherry wine. Add lobster and cook fifteen minutes. Remove lobster to serving dish, thicken sauce with four tablespoons, each, butter and flour cooked together, and add one and one-half tablespoons brandy. Pour sauce around lobster, and sprinkle all with finely chopped chives.
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A restaurant-style lobster braise in the manner of homard à l'américaine: shellfish cut up in the shell, simmered in a tomato-and-wine sauce, finished with brandy. The technique holds up well; a few of the terms and timings need translating.
- The hinge: cook timeFifteen minutes of simmering will overshoot modern taste for lobster in the shell. Cut-up hard-shell lobster meat is done in about 8 to 10 minutes at a bare simmer; pull the tail pieces first and give the claws a minute or two more. Rubbery lobster is the one failure this dish cannot recover from.
- "Lady" and intestinal veinThe "lady" is the stomach sac just behind the eyes; the intestinal vein runs down the tail. Remove both. The green tomalley and any coral are sometimes whisked into the finished sauce, though many cooks now discard the tomalley.
- Dispatching the lobsterCutting up a live lobster is still the standard professional approach; drive the knife tip through the head behind the eyes first, then joint it. Chilling the lobster in the freezer for 15 minutes beforehand makes it manageable.
- "Two red peppers from pepper sauce"Bottled pepper sauce of this sort generally meant small hot chiles packed whole in vinegar, much like pickled tabasco or cherry peppers today. Two pickled hot peppers from a jar, or a teaspoon of the vinegar plus a pinch of cayenne, gets you there.
- Brown StockThe book's Brown Stock is a long-simmered beef stock made from shin of beef and bone, part of the meat browned first. Unsalted beef or veal stock substitutes directly; taste before adding the full teaspoon of salt if your stock is already seasoned.
- The thickeningFour tablespoons each of butter and flour is a great deal of roux for roughly two cups of liquid, and will give a very heavy sauce. Cook the roux to blond, then whisk in only as much as you need for a coating consistency, or reduce the sauce instead and finish it with cold butter.
- Brandy off the heatBrandy at the finish -- The brandy goes in after the sauce is thickened, so it gets little cooking. If you would rather burn off the alcohol, add it to the pan before the stock and let it reduce.
- YieldTwo lobsters of a pound and a half make two to four main-course servings with rice or bread, depending on appetite, or up to six as a first course.
The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book carries a run of lobster dishes that echo the French restaurant repertoire of the period, and this is one of them: the aromatic mirepoix of shallot and carrot, the tomato and Sherry, the brandy at the finish and the shell-on service all belong to the family of homard à l'américaine and its cousin à l'armoricaine. Names of this kind — "à la Muisset" — usually honor a chef, a restaurant, or a patron, and many of them travelled into American cookbooks through hotel kitchens without any record of who was being honored; the attribution here is not documented. The trailing "M" in the text is not part of the instructions, though what it represents is unclear — possibly a printer's or contributor's mark, possibly a transcription artifact. What the recipe does record clearly is how ordinary lobster was in New England kitchens at the turn of the century: a book aimed at housekeepers and cooking students could open with "two one and one-half pound live lobsters" and expect no argument.