No. 1042

Lobster Tails a la Stanley

Queues de Homards a la Stanley

Wash, blanch, and cook in a white broth (No. 194a), twelve ounces of good Carolina rice, keeping it quite consistent; twenty to twenty-five minutes will suffice to have it done; keep it warm. Suppress the tail shell of a large, freshly cooked lobster; cut the meat into slices, and lay them in a sautoire; saute these, when done add the same quantity of fish quenelles (No. 90) molded in a small coffeespoon (No. 155), five or six whole hard boiled egg-yolks, a few dozen crawfish tails, and the same amount of poached and trimmed oysters. Put on to reduce five gills of veloute sauce (No. 415), pour into it slowly a few spoonfuls of fish court-bouillon (No. 38), a part of the broth from the oysters, the crawfish, a coffeespoonful of powdered curry dissolved in two spoonfuls of broth. When the sauce has become thick and succulent, strain it, and return it to the saucepan to heat once more, then cover the garnishings with a small part of it, keeping it in a bain-marie, while the remainder is to be set on the side of the range, and butter worked into it. Dress the lobster, in a chafing dish dome-shape, with the garnishing around, and on top lay symmetrically four cooked crawfish, having their tails shelled, and pour a little of the sauce over the lobster; lay a round truffle on the summit of the dome, and send to the table at once with a sauce-boat of the buttered sauce. The rice to be served separately.

← No. 1041 Lobster a la Rougemont Lobster No. 1043 Small Lobsters a la Carlu, Stuffed Lobster T →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with stock pots and mother sauces already standing; stripped of the cross-references this is poached shellfish in a lightly curried fish velouté, mounded over rice. The hinge is the sauce: it must be reduced and strained before the butter goes in, and it must never boil afterwards or it will break.

Gills and other measuresFive gills of velouté is 2 1/2 cups; a gill is half a cup. A "coffeespoonful" of curry powder is a small spoonful, on the order of half a teaspoon, and a coffeespoon is also specified as the mold for the quenelles, so they come out small.
Sautoire and bain-marieA sautoire is a straight-sided sauté pan, wide enough to hold the lobster slices in one layer. The bain-marie here is simply a bowl set over hot, not boiling, water to hold the garnished shellfish at serving temperature without cooking it further.
Carolina riceCarolina rice was the long-grain American rice of the period, prized for cooking up separate rather than creamy. Any good long-grain rice stands in. Twelve ounces dry is a large amount, in keeping with a dish built for a sizeable table, though the recipe gives no yield; "quite consistent" appears to mean firm grains, not a pilaf gone soft.
White broth and court-bouillonNo. 194a is a light, unbrowned stock; No. 38 a fish court-bouillon. A mild fish fumet or unsalted chicken stock serves for the rice, and the oyster and crawfish cooking liquors do most of the flavoring work in the sauce, so hold back on salt until the reduction is finished.
The oystersPoach them only until the edges ruffle, well under a minute, then lift them out and reserve the liquor. They are added to already-hot garnish and will firm up further in the bain-marie; anything more and they turn to erasers.
The lobsterThe lobster is cooked before it is sliced, so the sauté is a warming and glazing step of a minute or two per side in butter. Overcooked lobster goes stringy and no sauce will disguise it.
Curry powderA single coffeespoonful in 2 1/2 cups of sauce is a background note, not a curry. Nineteenth-century commercial curry powders were turmeric-heavy and comparatively mild; a modern Madras blend is stronger, so start with less and taste.
Finishing with butterStrain the reduced sauce, divide it, and work cold butter into the portion held off the heat, off the direct flame. This monté au beurre is what makes the sauce-boat sauce glossy; reheating it to a boil will split it.
Crawfish and truffleWhole crawfish were a standard garnish and are decorative rather than essential. The round truffle at the summit can be omitted without harming the dish, which is otherwise a good deal less rarefied than it looks.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is the record of what a great American restaurant of the Gilded Age could put on a plate. Dishes named for individuals fill the book, and "à la Stanley" is one of the period's recurring restaurant names, generally attached to preparations carrying curry and a cream or velouté base; it is often linked to the explorer Henry Morton Stanley, whose African expeditions were front-page news in the 1870s and 1880s, though the connection is traditional rather than documented. The touch of curry powder is the tell: by the end of the century Indian spice had been thoroughly absorbed into French restaurant cooking as a seasoning for shellfish and white sauces, used in doses small enough to read as exotic without unsettling anyone. The dome of lobster in a chafing dish, crowned with a truffle and flanked by a sauce-boat, is pure Delmonico's service — the rice sent separately so the composition on the table stays intact.