No. 1028

Lobster a la Camille

Homard a la Camille

Heat in a sautoir some good sweet oil, and throw into it live lobsters, each one cut across into twelve pieces; season with salt, pepper, mignonette, thyme, bay leaf and cayenne pepper; toss them over a brisk fire for twelve minutes, then add three medium fresh tomatoes, peeled, seeded and cut in dice, a few parsley leaves and a clove of crushed garlic; let reduce for ten minutes, then pour in a gill of brandy, set it on fire, and as soon as it is extinguished pour in two gills of white wine, reduce to half, and just when ready to serve, add some meat glaze (No. 402) and lemon juice.

← No. 1027 Lobster a la Britannia Lobster No. 1029 Lobster a la Creole →

For the Modern Kitchen

A Delmonico's-era sauté in the à l'américaine family: shellfish cooked hard in oil in the shell, flamed with brandy, finished with wine and glaze. Two things carry it — cutting the lobster raw, and having a real meat glaze on hand.

SautoirA straight-sided sauté pan, wide and shallow, not a casserole dish. Use the widest pan that will hold the pieces in one layer; crowding steams the shells instead of searing them.
GillsA gill is half a cup, 4 fl oz. So half a cup of brandy and one cup of white wine, reduced by half.
Twelve piecesThe lobster is broken down raw; 'cut across' suggests the tail sectioned into rounds through the shell, with claws, knuckles and body making up the rest of the twelve, though Ranhofer does not spell the division out. Reserve the tomalley and any coral — in this family of dishes they are often worked into butter and stirred in off the heat to bind the sauce, though this particular recipe does not call for it.
Killing the lobsterStandard practice now is a firm knife thrust through the head, behind the eyes, before cutting. It is faster than what the original implies and makes the sectioning easier.
MignonetteCoarsely cracked white or black peppercorns, not the shallot-vinegar sauce served with raw oysters today. The dish already calls for pepper and cayenne, so keep the mignonette to a generous pinch.
Twelve minutes over a brisk fireThat is long for lobster by current standards. The shells and hard claws protect the meat somewhat, but the tail sections will be firm. Sear the pieces hard for two or three minutes to set the shells red, then pull the tail rounds out and return them for the last minute of the finished sauce.
Meat glaze (No. 402)Glace de viande — brown stock reduced to a syrup that sets to a rubbery block when cold. A teaspoon or two is enough; commercial demi-glace concentrate is the practical stand-in. Add it off the boil so it does not turn the sauce salty and dull.
Flaming the brandyPull the pan from the flame before pouring, stand back, and light it with a long match. Let it burn out on its own rather than smothering it — the point is to cook off the raw spirit before the wine goes in.
YieldNot stated. Two lobsters of about 1 1/4 lb each serve four as a course, with rice or bread to take up the sauce.

A Little History

This is No. 1028 in Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the vast compendium of the cooking he did over some thirty years at Delmonico's in New York. It belongs to the group of dishes built on the method that emerged in Paris in the 1860s as homard à l'américaine — lobster cut up raw in the shell, seared in oil rather than poached in court bouillon, then flamed and finished with tomato, garlic and wine. The oil and garlic, where a classical fish preparation would have used butter, are usually explained as a Provençal-Mediterranean influence on haute cuisine; the long-running argument over whether the name should be américaine or armoricaine, after the old name for Brittany, has never been settled, though armoricaine is generally taken to be the later of the two. Ranhofer's book carries a long run of lobster preparations distinguished by dedication — Britannia, Créole, Camille — which need not imply a claim about any particular person.