No. 2447

Cases of Lobster a la Ravigote-Small

Petites Caisses de Homard a la Ravigote

Place nine or twelve small china cases two inches in diameter on ice to become thoroughly cold. Split across in two the meats taken from six cooked lobster claws, and cut these up into small rounds, using a vegetable cutter one and a quarter inches in diameter for the purpose, and lay them in a small-sized vessel with half as many rounds of truffles cut the same size as the lobster and two or three spoonfuls of gherkins cut in slices; season with salt, a dash of cayenne pepper, oil and vinegar and let stand for fifteen minutes; drain off the seasoning; fill the cases with the preparation mixed with mayonnaise printaniere, and cover the top with a layer of mayonnaise (No. 606), finished with tarragon vinegar; smooth the jelly sauce and dress the cases on a folded napkin.

← No. 2446 Lambs' Brains with Mayonnaise The Cold Service No. 2448 Cases of Snipe with Jelly-Small →

For the Modern Kitchen

A cold hors d'oeuvre from Ranhofer's Delmonico's repertoire: dressed lobster claw meat bound with herb mayonnaise and served in small individual cases. Nothing is cooked at the point of assembly, so everything depends on temperature and on the mayonnaise.

Chill everything, not just the casesThe instruction to ice the china cases is the hinge. Lobster mayonnaise separates and slumps at room temperature, so the meat, the mayonnaise and the serving dishes should all be refrigerator-cold and the finished cases held on ice until they go to the table.
The casesTwo-inch china "caisses" are about the size of a modern espresso cup; small ramekins, ceramic sauce dishes or Chinese tea cups all work. The recipe makes nine or twelve of them; how many people that serves depends on whether they are counted one or two to a guest.
How much lobsterSix cooked lobster claws is roughly 6 to 8 oz of picked meat, i.e. the claws of three lobsters. Claw meat holds a clean disc when cut; tail meat sliced into rounds will do the same job.
The vegetable cutterA 1¼-inch plain round cutter, or the wide end of a piping tip. The recipe has you split the claw meats across in two first, so the pieces are thin enough to punch cleanly rather than tear.
Mayonnaise printaniereRanhofer's spring mayonnaise: mayonnaise tinted and flavored with green herbs, typically some combination of tarragon, chervil, parsley and chives, sometimes with spinach for colour. A modern equivalent is mayonnaise blended with blanched, squeezed herbs, which is also where the "ravigote" character comes from.
Truffles and gherkinsBlack truffle in this quantity is a garnish of last resort today; finely diced cooked artichoke bottom or a few slivers of black olive give the dark contrast without the expense. "Gherkins" here means French cornichons in vinegar, not sweet pickles.
Drain the marinadeFifteen minutes in oil, vinegar, salt and cayenne seasons the lobster; leaving the liquid in will break the mayonnaise. Drain well and blot the pieces before mixing.
"Smooth the jelly sauce"The top coating is mayonnaise stiffened with a little melted aspic or gelatin, the classic mayonnaise collee, so it can be spread flat and will hold its surface. Spread it while just fluid and let it set in the refrigerator before serving.
Raw-egg mayonnaiseThe mayonnaise is uncooked and stays uncooked. If serving anyone pregnant, elderly or immunocompromised, use pasteurized eggs or a commercial mayonnaise as the base.

A Little History

This is entry No. 2447 in Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium of the cooking he oversaw for some thirty years as chef of Delmonico's in New York, and it shows the book at its most characteristic: a two-bite cold hors d'oeuvre with a numbered cross-reference to another recipe, assuming a brigade with time to punch lobster meat into discs. Ravigote comes from the French ravigoter, to revive or invigorate, and names a family of sharp, herb-and-vinegar preparations, both the warm butter sauce and the cold green-herb dressing used here. The style of service, small china cases dressed on a folded napkin, belongs to the late nineteenth-century American banquet, where the cold service was an assembly of many small identical pieces set out at once rather than a single plated course. Lobster was well suited to the job: cheap and abundant along the Northeast coast in the middle of the century, and by Ranhofer's day thoroughly established as a luxury on restaurant menus.