No. 1041

Lobster a la Rougemont

Homard a la Rougemont

Kill three lobsters each weighing two pounds by plunging them for two minutes into boiling water; when well drained, break off the claws from the bodies so that they occupy less room in cooking, and put the whole into a saucepan; moisten with half a bottleful of white wine, and the same quantity of water, and add cut up carrots, celery, leeks and onions, thyme, bay leaf, parsley branches and pepper corns, let all boil for twenty-five minutes, and drain off the lobsters. Detach the tails from the bodies, split the latter lengthwise to obtain all the creamy parts, which must be pressed through a sieve and laid aside. Cut the tail meat into slices, keeping all the water issuing from it; fry in either two ounces of butter or oil, the body shells after chopping them up coarsely on the table, add minced carrots, celery, onions, leeks, shallots and paprika, half of the lobster stock, and the water from the meat; let all boil for fifteen minutes, then strain through a sieve. Suppress the shells from the claws, cut up the meat the same as the tails, season with salt and fry them both with butter for two minutes over a brisk fire, then moisten with the stock, adding half a pint of veloute sauce (No. 415), and one gill of tomato puree (No. 730); let simmer for twelve minutes. Add half the quantity of cooked mushroom heads, and the creamy parts of the lobsters, thicken with egg-yolks, one gill of cream and two ounces of butter, pour over a little burnt brandy, and less than half as much Madeira wine; dress this on a chafing dish, and serve at the same time some rice cooked in milk, seasoned with salt and lemon peel.

← No. 1040 Lobster Roasted on the Spit Lobster No. 1042 Lobster Tails a la Stanley →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's method is a full lobster à l'américaine in structure: a court bouillon, a second stock built from the crushed shells, then a finish with velouté, tomato and a liaison of yolks and cream. Read it through before you start, because three separate cooking liquids have to be kept track of.

The hinge: the liaisonOnce the egg yolks, cream and butter go in, the sauce must not boil or even approach it. Take the pan off the heat, add the yolk-cream mixture with the creamy parts, and return it to low heat only long enough to thicken to a coating consistency. A single boil curdles the yolks and the sauce breaks.
Quantities and unitsA gill is half a cup (4 fl oz), so one gill of tomato purée and one of cream are half a cup each. Half a bottle of white wine is about 12 fl oz. "Half the quantity of cooked mushroom heads" is ambiguous: Ranhofer does not say half of what, though half the quantity of lobster meat is the likeliest reading. Judge it by eye.
The creamy partsThis is the tomalley (the green liver) and, in a female, the dark coral, which turns red when cooked. Both are the flavour engine of the dish. Note that public-health agencies now advise against eating tomalley in quantity, since it concentrates contaminants and marine biotoxins; if that concerns you, omit it and enrich the sauce with more butter.
Killing and the two-minute plungeTwo minutes in boiling water kills the lobster and sets the meat enough to shell it, but the twenty-five-minute simmer that follows is more than 2-lb lobsters need — modern practice for that size is nearer 12 to 15 minutes total. Overcooked at this stage, the tail meat will be fibrous by the time it has also spent twelve minutes in the sauce. Pull the lobsters as soon as the shells are red and the meat is just set.
Velouté and tomato puréeNo. 415 is Ranhofer's velouté, a roux slackened with white stock; a well-made blond roux sauce with chicken stock stands in. No. 730 is his tomato purée, which would have been reduced fresh tomato rather than the sweet paste sold in tubes — use a good passata reduced by half, or canned tomato purée cut with a little stock. Check both cross-references in the book before scaling.
"Burnt brandy"Warm a little brandy, ignite it, let the flame die and pour it in; the Madeira, "less than half as much," follows. Ranhofer gives no measures for either, and does not say whether the Madeira is flamed — adding it unflamed at the very end keeps more of its aroma.
Frying the shellsChop the body shells coarsely and fry them hard in butter or oil until they smell toasted before the vegetables and paprika go in. This is where the colour and depth of the sauce come from; a pale shell fry gives a pale, thin sauce.
Chafing dish and riceThe chafing dish is a service vessel over a spirit lamp — a warmed shallow dish or a low burner does the same job. The rice is cooked in milk with salt and a strip of lemon peel, not sweetened; treat it as a plain milk pilaf and drain any excess.
YieldThree 2-lb lobsters give roughly 1¼ to 1½ lb of picked meat, which serves four to six as a main course, or more as one course of a longer meal of the kind served at Delmonico's.

A Little History

The recipe comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the compendium of the kitchen he ran at Delmonico's in New York, and it belongs to the great family of nineteenth-century lobster preparations — américaine, Newburg, Bordelaise — in which the shells are turned into a stock and the tomalley into a thickener. The garnish name Rougemont is one of dozens Ranhofer attached to variations on a single technique, usually honouring a patron, a place or an occasion rather than describing the dish; unlike Newburg, whose Delmonico's origin story is at least recorded, no specific person or event has been documented behind this one. What the recipe does show clearly is how the house worked: nothing of the lobster is thrown away until it has given up its flavour, the sauce is built in layers over three separate cookings, and the finish — flamed brandy, a whisper of Madeira, egg yolks and cream — is completed in the pan, the dish then dressed on a chafing dish for service.