No. 2470

Cream of Lobster

Creme de Homard

Fasten a wooden paper-covered foundation on a dish, having in its center a flat support two inches high, forming a step with a hole in the top. Decorate the bottom and interior of ten large timbale molds (No. 1, Fig. 137) with gherkins or truffles dipped in half-set jelly, coat the molds lightly with jelly, turning them around on ice. Suppress the shells from the tails and claws of three small cooked lobsters, split the claws in two lengthwise and readjust them with half-set jelly to their original shape; keep them on ice. Cut up the tail meats and pound them with a few spoonfuls of good veloute sauce (No. 415) reduced with mushroom liquor, and mix in two spoonfuls of the creamy parts from the bodies, also a dash of cayenne pepper; pass the whole through a tammy and pour the preparation into a vessel to smooth while stirring it vigorously with a spoon; incorporate into it slowly four gills of oil, two spoonfuls of tarragon vinegar and two gills of aspic jelly (No. 103); beat the preparation on ice to thicken, then mix in at once the value of three or four gills of unsweetened whipped cream. When finished, fill the small molds with this preparation and let it harden on ice; at the last moment dip each mold separately into hot water, wipe them off quickly and invert them on the bottom of the dish around the support; cover this latter with a coat of thick chopped jelly and stick an untrimmed hatelet in the hole on top; now dress the lobster claws upright in a triangle against the hatelet, placed there with the purpose of holding them up, and fasten them on with sticky jelly; brush them over with half-set jelly and surround the base with green parsley leaves or water cress. Arrange around the dish small, even triangles of jelly, cutting off the tips, and serve with mayonnaise sauce (No. 606).

← No. 2469 Chicken Roasted with Jelly, Cut Up and Garni The Cold Service No. 2471 Cutlets of Lamb, Imperial →

For the Modern Kitchen

A cold lobster mousse from Delmonico's, built as much for the sideboard as for the palate. Most of the difficulty lies in two places: the emulsion, and the timing of the aspic.

The hinge: build it like a mayonnaiseThe pounded, sieved lobster takes four gills of oil, which the original says to incorporate slowly; poured in fast an emulsion of this kind is liable to break. Keep the mixture cold and stir constantly; the recipe calls for beating it on ice once the oil, vinegar and aspic are in.
Aspic timingThe two gills of aspic want to be liquid but cool when they go in, and the whipped cream follows immediately ('at once' in the original). Once the gelatin begins to set the mixture is hard to smooth out again.
Gills and spoonfulsA gill is half a cup: four gills of oil is 2 cups, two gills of aspic is 1 cup, three to four gills of whipped cream is 1 1/2 to 2 cups. The 'spoonfuls' of veloute and vinegar read as tablespoons; judge by consistency rather than count.
TammyA tammy is a fine woven cloth used to force purees through. A drum sieve or a fine chinois with a ladle does the same job, and a food processor will replace the mortar work before the final sieving.
Timbale molds and unmoldingThe original specifies ten timbale molds (No. 1, Fig. 137), described as large at the outset and as the small molds later on; dariole molds serve. The hot-water dip should be a second or two only; any longer and the aspic lining slumps before the mousse is out.
Hatelet and socleA hatelet is an ornamental skewer; the wooden paper-covered foundation is a socle, a structural plinth that is not eaten. Both can be dropped without touching the dish itself, though the claws then need something else to lean against.
The creamy partsThe 'creamy parts from the bodies' are the tomalley and, in a hen lobster, the coral. The two spoonfuls called for add flavour and colour to the mousse.
Yield and serviceTen molds, served as a first course or a cold buffet centrepiece. Keep the finished dish refrigerated until the moment it goes out; a cream-and-aspic mousse standing warm on a buffet is the one real risk in the recipe.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the Cold Service chapter is the most theatrical part of it. Dishes like this one belong to the grand buffet tradition generally traced to Carême: a savoury cream set with aspic, unmolded in miniature, and arranged around a socle with hatelets and claws standing upright as architecture. The technique is a mousse froide, in which pounded flesh is emulsified with oil, lightened with whipped cream and bound with jelly, and it was applied across the repertoire to ham, foie gras, salmon and game. Lobster was the natural choice for an American house, and Ranhofer's book gives the shellfish a generous share of its pages. The cross-references scattered through the text (No. 415, No. 103, No. 606) are a reminder that this was written for a brigade with those preparations already standing ready, not for a cook starting from nothing.