No. 2224

Brochettes of Lobsters

Brochettes de Homard

Plunge some live lobsters in boiling water just sufficiently long to easily detach the meat from the shells; drain them, and break the tail shells so as to obtain all the meat contained therein; cut this up into transversal slices three-sixteenths of an inch thick, season them highly with salt and prepared red pepper (No. 168), immerse them in melted butter, and run skewers (Fig. 176) through the pieces, alternating each one with slices of cooked mushrooms; lay them again in butter, and broil them over a steady fire for twelve to fourteen minutes. Dress them on a dish, pour over some Colbert sauce (No. 451); serve very hot.

← No. 2223 Skewers of Lampreys, Marinade Sauce Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2225 Oyster Brochettes →

For the Modern Kitchen

A Delmonico's skewer dish that depends almost entirely on not overcooking the lobster. Ranhofer's own timing is the part to ignore.

The broiling time is the hingeTwelve to fourteen minutes over a steady fire will turn parboiled lobster to rubber. The meat is already part-cooked from the parboil; three to five minutes total under a hot broiler or over coals, turned once, is enough to colour the butter and heat the pieces through.
The parboil"Just sufficiently long to easily detach the meat" is roughly 3 minutes at a rolling boil for a 1–1 1/4 lb lobster — the shell reddens and the tail meat pulls free but the centre is still translucent. Chill the lobsters briefly before shelling so the slices hold their shape.
Prepared red pepper (No. 168)Ranhofer gives his own preparation under this number, a red-pepper (cayenne) seasoning. Straight cayenne works; "season highly" in this book means assertively, so add in stages.
Colbert sauce (No. 451)In the classical repertoire this is meat glaze worked with butter, lemon juice and chopped parsley, sometimes with a little madeira — essentially a compound butter loosened with glace de viande; No. 451 is where Ranhofer's own version sits. A reduced veal or chicken stock beaten with cold butter, lemon and parsley gives the same effect. Make it last and keep it off direct heat or it will split.
Slice thickness mattersThree-sixteenths of an inch is about 5 mm. Thinner rounds dry out on the grill; much thicker ones will not heat through in the short broil. Cut across the tail so each medallion holds together on the skewer.
Mushrooms"Cooked mushrooms" means button caps already stewed in butter or blanched in acidulated water, not raw. Raw caps will still be squeaky when the lobster is done.
SkewersMetal skewers conduct heat into the meat, and the recipe points the cook to a figure for the type it intends. If using bamboo, soak them well; the butter drips and flares.
YieldThe recipe gives no quantity. Two 1 1/4 lb lobsters fill about four skewers — a first course for four, or two as a main with the sauce.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, where the numbered cross-references — prepared red pepper at No. 168, Colbert sauce at No. 451 — worked as a professional kitchen's internal index rather than a home cook's convenience. Brochette is simply the French for a small skewer, from broche, a spit, and by the late nineteenth century the word had become a standard menu heading for anything threaded and grilled: lampreys and oysters flank this entry on either side. The recipe has the cook boil several lobsters, detach the meat from the shells and break the tail shells to obtain all the meat. The pairing with Colbert sauce — a meat glaze butter, generally traced to the Louis XIV minister in the loose nineteenth-century way that attached statesmen's names to garnishes, though the attribution is traditional rather than documented — is characteristic of the book's habit of treating shellfish with the vocabulary of the meat kitchen.