No. 1038

Lobster a la Paul Bert

Homard a la Paul Bert

Take eight one-pound lobsters and plunge them into boiling water into which has been added a bunch of parsley, sliced onions, salt, pepper and vinegar; let them boil steadily twenty minutes, then remove; detach the bodies from the tails; take the meat out whole from the latter by breaking the inside of the shell only; then wash and dry the shells. Cut up the tail meat into transversal slices; put four ounces of butter into a sautoire, range the lobster escalops on top, and saute them, adding a small finely chopped up shallot, half as much shrimps as lobster, and half as much fresh, peeled walnuts as shrimps. (Should there be no fresh walnuts procurable, take dry ones and soak them for twelve hours in salt and water, then peel.) Drain off the butter and replace it by a reduced bechamel sauce (No. 409) thickened with egg-yolks, cream and fresh butter, with lemon juice and chopped parsley, being careful to have the sauce quite thick. Fill the lobster shells with this preparation, dress them crown-shaped on a bed of parsley, and arrange a bunch of parsley leaves on top.

← No. 1037 Lobster a la Newberg or Delmonico Lobster No. 1039 Lobster, Provencal Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's lobster dishes assume a brigade and a stack of cross-referenced sauces; this one reduces to poached lobster, shrimp and walnuts bound in a very thick, egg-enriched béchamel and served back in the shells. Two things need adjusting before you cook: the boiling time and the sauce handling.

Twenty minutes is far too longA one-pound lobster is cooked through in about 7 to 8 minutes in hard-boiling court bouillon, and the tail meat here is sliced and sautéed afterward as well. At twenty minutes it will be dry and fibrous. Pull them when the shell is uniformly red and the tail curls firmly.
The boiling liquid is a court bouillonParsley, sliced onion, salt, pepper and vinegar in the water is a plain court bouillon. Use roughly a quarter cup of vinegar and a generous handful of salt per gallon; the water should taste distinctly of the sea before the lobsters go in.
Sautoire and escalopsA sautoire is a straight-sided saute pan, wide enough to hold the slices in one layer. "Escalops" here simply means the transversal slices of tail meat; Ranhofer does not specify a thickness.
Fresh walnutsRanhofer most likely means new-crop "wet" walnuts, available briefly in autumn, whose skins slip off easily after soaking or blanching (not the unripe green walnuts of midsummer used for pickling). The substitution he gives works: soak shelled dry walnuts twelve hours in salted water, then rub off the bitter skin, which is otherwise tannic.
Béchamel No. 409Bechamel No. 409 -- The cross-referenced sauce is not printed here; Ranhofer's bechamel is a milk sauce on a white roux, of the sort period kitchens often simmered with veal and aromatics before straining. A well-made modern bechamel, reduced until it coats heavily, stands in for it. It must be thicker than seems reasonable, since the lobster and shrimp will shed liquid into it.
The egg-yolk liaisonOnce the yolks and cream go in, the sauce must not boil or it will curdle and break. Take the pan off the heat, temper the yolks with a little hot sauce, return it, and hold it just below a simmer while the butter and lemon juice are beaten in.
Shells and presentationBreak the tail shells on the underside only, as directed, so the top stays intact and holds its shape; wash, dry and warm them before filling. "Crown-shaped" means the filled shells arranged in a ring around the platter.
Proportions and yieldHalf as much shrimp as lobster by weight, and half as much walnut as shrimp. Eight one-pound lobsters will give somewhere around 1 to 1.5 lb of tail meat depending on the lobsters, so scale the shrimp and walnuts to whatever you actually pick out. That serves eight as a course. The body meat and coral are not used here and are worth saving for a bisque or the sauce.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its habit of naming dishes for public figures was standard practice in the French kitchen of the period. Paul Bert (1833 coming1886) was a French physiologist, best known for pioneering work on the effects of air pressure on the body, who moved into republican politics and died of dysentery in Hanoi while serving as Resident-General of Tonkin. He was much in the news at the time of his death, and a dish carrying his name most likely dates from that moment; Ranhofer, as usual, offers no explanation. The combination of shellfish with fresh walnuts is the more interesting signature here retretreated as a luxury garnish, sweet and faintly milky rather than resinous, and their short season is why the recipe includes its own workaround.