No. 2348

Shells of Lobster

Coquilles de Homard

Kill two two-pound lobsters by plunging them into boiling water for two minutes; break off the claws, and put them into a saucepan with the bodies; cover with a court-bouillon (No. 38), and allow the liquid to boil for twenty minutes while covered; then remove the saucepan from the fire and leave the lobsters to partially cool off in this stock; drain them. Suppress the claw shells, and cut the meats up into three-sixteenths of an inch squares; lay them in a small saucepan, detach the tails from the bodies, rub the creamy parts of the latter through a sieve, and strain the lobster stock; put this on the fire to reduce to a half-glaze, and incorporate into it slowly a quart of reduced bechamel sauce (No. 409); season with a pinch of cayenne pepper; the sauce should be reduced to a proper degree and seasoned. Cut the lobster tails lengthwise in two, take out the meats, and cut them into slices; butter the insides of the shells (Fig. 438), strew over with bread-crumbs, and dress the pieces of lobster crown-shaped inside of these, alternating them with a slice of truffle; lay them in a sautoir, one very close to the other; add the dice-shaped pieces of lobster to the sauce and pour this over the contents of the shells. Besprinkle with parmesan, and color the tops, using a salamander (Fig. 123); then dress the shells on folded napkins in a circle, garnishing the center with green parsley sprigs.

← No. 2347 Shells of Frogs' Legs Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2349 Shells of Mussels or Oysters Baked →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's coquilles are a two-stage job: cook and pick the lobsters, then build a heavily reduced béchamel enriched with the lobster stock and tomalley. Most of the modernising is in scale and equipment.

Sauce quantityA quart of reduced béchamel is restaurant scale for a service of many shells. For two 2-lb lobsters filling four half-shells, about 1 to 1½ cups of thick béchamel is enough; any more and the lobster disappears.
Court-bouillonNo. 38 is one of Ranhofer's numbered court-bouillons, an aromatic cooking broth of water with wine or vinegar plus vegetables and herbs; consult the numbered recipe for its exact composition. Any well-salted vegetable court-bouillon works, and the strained cooking liquid is then reduced to a syrupy half-glaze that carries the whole dish.
The creamy partsThe green tomalley and, in a hen lobster, the red coral. Sieved into the sauce they give it colour and depth. They are perishable — use them the day the lobster is cooked, and discard them if the lobster has sat overnight.
Cooking timeTwenty minutes at a covered boil for a 2-lb lobster is long by modern practice; 12 to 14 minutes gives firmer meat. Ranhofer then lets them cool partly in the stock, which continues the cooking, so shorten the boil rather than the steeping.
SalamanderThe overhead broiler element in a modern oven does the same work. Position the shells 4 to 5 inches beneath it and watch continuously — the parmesan browns in a minute or two, and the sauce beneath will break if it boils hard.
SautoirA straight-sided sauté pan or, easier here, a shallow baking dish. Packing the shells tightly against one another keeps them upright so the sauce does not run out.
TruffleFresh black truffle in 1894 was an everyday luxury garnish in this kind of kitchen. Thin-sliced preserved truffle is the closest substitute; sautéed cremini or a slice of blanched leek give the visual alternation without pretending to be truffle.
YieldTwo 2-lb lobsters give four half-shells, enough for four as a first course or two as a light main.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York in two stints, roughly 1862 to 1876 and again from 1879 to 1896, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working repertory written down. Coquilles were a whole genre of made dishes served in a natural shell or a metal shell-shaped dish: creamed, crumbed or cheesed, glazed under the salamander, and set on a folded napkin so they would not slide. The section around this entry runs through coquilles of frogs' legs, mussels and oysters in the same format. The technique here — reducing the shellfish cooking liquor to a half-glaze and mounting a béchamel on it, then sharpening with cayenne — is the same logic that produced lobster Newburg and lobster Thermidor in the same decades, and the sieved tomalley is the frugal, and flavourful, step that most modern versions leave out.