No. 1025

Small Lobsters a la Bordelaise

Petits Homards a la Bordelaise

Take four small lobsters weighing one pound each and kill them in boiling water, drain, and break off the large claws, put them together in a narrow saucepan, and moisten to three quarters of their height with a court bouillon made with white wine (No. 39); let cook for twelve minutes, then set aside, and leave them for ten minutes longer in their stock. Cut up into three-sixteenth of an inch squares, half a pound of carrots, a quarter of a pound of onions, and a quarter of a pound of celery root; parboil them separately and finish cooking them in broth for three-quarters of an hour, letting the liquid fall to a glaze until they are done, then add some tomatoes cut up in dice; keep this on one side. Drain the lobsters, split them each in two lengthwise, and detach the half tails from the bodies; suppress the claw shells and return the tails to their shells, also the bodies; place again in the saucepan, cover and keep warm. Strain their broth and free it of fat, let it reduce to a half-glaze, and thicken with a few spoonfuls of brown sauce (No. 414) reduced with Madeira and a little tomato sauce (No. 549). Finish with two spoonfuls of burnt brandy, and a pinch of cayenne; take it from the fire to stir in some butter and the vegetable stock; range in vegetable dishes the half bodies, and half tails in their shells, set the shelless claws on top, and cover over with a part of the sauce, serving the remainder in a sauce-boat.

← No. 1024 Lobster or Spiny Lobster, American Style Lobster No. 1026 Lobster a la Bonnefoy →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with stocks and mother sauces already on the stove; the work here is mostly assembly and reduction. Read the whole thing through before starting, because three separate preparations have to come together warm.

Court bouillon (No. 39)Ranhofer's white-wine court bouillon, an aromatic wine-and-water cooking liquid cross-referenced from earlier in the book. Season it well, since this liquid is strained, reduced and becomes the base of the sauce.
Brown sauce (No. 414) and tomato sauce (No. 549)The brown sauce is the book's standing espagnole-type brown sauce built on veal stock; a good reduced veal demi-glace does the same job, and a few spoonfuls is all that is required. For No. 549, use a plain cooked tomato sauce, not a seasoned pasta sauce.
"Burnt brandy"Warm the brandy (the recipe's two spoonfuls), set it alight, and let the flame die before it goes into the sauce. The point is to drive off the raw spirit while keeping the aroma.
Vegetable cut and cookingThree-sixteenths of an inch is a small dice, roughly 5 mm, cut by hand. Three-quarters of an hour in broth is long by modern standards; it is meant to reduce the liquid to a glaze that coats the dice, so use a wide pan and a modest amount of broth and judge by the glaze rather than the clock.
Celery rootCeleriac, not celery stalks. A quarter pound is a piece cut from a bulb, peeled hard to remove the fibrous skin.
Butter off the heatThe final butter is a monter au beurre: pan off the flame, cold butter whisked in a piece at a time. Return it to a boil afterwards and the sauce will break.
Serving and yieldFour small lobsters serve four generously as a course, or eight in a longer menu. "Vegetable dishes" here means shallow warmed serving dishes, not individual plates; the halves are meant to be presented in their shells at table.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of his decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York. "A la bordelaise" is one of the more elastic labels in the French repertoire: in the classic meat sense it means a red wine and marrow sauce, but applied here it is a preparation with a fine-cut aromatic vegetable garnish, brandy, tomato and cayenne, the same family of flavours as the American-style lobster that sits at No. 1024 immediately before it. The dish depends on the brigade system it was written in: the court bouillon, the brown sauce and the tomato sauce are all cross-referenced to earlier numbers because in a nineteenth-century professional kitchen they were standing preparations, made once and drawn on all service long.