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Broiled Lobster
Take a live lobster, and after it has been boiled split it lengthwise, and pick out all the uneatable parts; open it flat, place two small pieces of butter on it, and dust over with pepper; place the halves of the lobster, just as they were in their shells, on a gridiron, and heat slowly over a fire. When done put them with their shells on a hot dish, garnish with parsley and serve.
Two cooking stages compressed into one sentence: the lobster is boiled first, then finished over dry heat for flavor. Almost everything that can go wrong here is a matter of total cooking time.
- The hinge: undercook the boilThe hinge: total cooking time -- The recipe says only that the lobster is boiled before splitting, but because it then gets a second spell over the fire, a modern cook may want to pull it from the water short of fully done — perhaps 5 minutes at a hard boil for a 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 lb lobster rather than the usual 10 to 12. Boiled fully and then broiled, the tail dries out.
- GridironAn iron grate set over coals. A charcoal or gas grill is the direct equivalent; a broiler element at 4 to 6 inches from the rack does the same job. Shell side down throughout, so the shell buffers the meat and holds the melted butter.
- "Heat slowly"Moderate heat, roughly 5 to 8 minutes, only until the butter is bubbling and the cut surface is lightly colored. This is a reheat and a browning, not a cooking.
- The "uneatable parts"The feathery gills, the gritty sac behind the eyes, and the dark intestinal vein down the tail. The green tomalley and any red coral were considered delicacies in Oscar's day; current advice from several coastal health agencies is to discard the tomalley, since it concentrates contaminants and marine biotoxins.
- Butter quantity"Two small pieces" is vague; a tablespoon or so in total, divided between the halves, suits. Softened rather than melted butter will sit in the cavity and the tail groove instead of running into the fire.
- SeasoningPepper only, in the original — no salt is mentioned at any stage. If you boil in plain water, salt the cut surface before the butter.
- Yield and serviceOne lobster of 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 lb per person as a main course. The book sends it out on a hot dish with the shells left on and a parsley garnish.
Broiling was one of the ways a hotel dining room could treat a lobster once boiling had come to seem too plain, though the method itself long predates the Waldorf. Lobster had risen fast in status: cheap and even faintly disreputable food in the early nineteenth century, it was by the 1890s the centerpiece of the after-theater supper in New York, where the "lobster palace" restaurants of Broadway took their name from it. Oscar Tschirky, who ran the Waldorf's dining rooms from 1893, published this book in 1896, and the lobster chapter reflects a kitchen buying live crustaceans in volume. The two-stage method here — boil, then finish over coals — gives the cook a lobster brought to the table with the flavor of the coals on it.