No. 2476

Cutlets of Lobster a la Lowery

Cotelettes de Homard a la Lowery

Chop up three hard-boiled eggs, the whites and yolks separately, also some pistachios. Incrust a cylindrical mold in ice; divide the bottom into six even parts with sticks of truffles dipped in half-set jelly and in one of these put the white, in another the yellow, and in a third the green; repeat, then pour over a little jelly, and when hard add sufficient to have it three-eighths of an inch thick; over this lay in a circle some lobster escalops covered with jellied mayonnaise (No. 613), one overlapping the other; pour more jelly over, and continue this process until the mold is full; leave it on ice to get thoroughly cold, invert it on a dish and surround with cutlets prepared as follows: Have some bottomless cutlet molds; lay them on sheets of oiled paper, and cover the bottom of each one with a bed of jellied mayonnaise having raw fine herbs added to it; on top place small, well-seasoned slices of lobster, also sliced truffles, and cover with a little white jellied mayonnaise (No. 613), strewing the whole with finely chopped truffles; when very cold unmold and dress them in a circle around the aspic; trim the thin ends with a fancy favor frill (No. 10), and place a border of stuffed olives (No. 695) around the cutlets, and chopped jelly and croutons outside the whole.

← No. 2475 Cutlets of Lamb with Tomatoed Chaudfroid The Cold Service No. 2477 Cutlets of Pheasant in Chaudfroid →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is a Gilded Age buffet piece: a layered lobster aspic ringed with individual cutlet-shaped mayonnaise moulds. Nothing in it is difficult, but almost every step depends on gelatin setting at the right moment, so read the whole thing before starting and have everything cold.

The hinge: work in thin, set layersEach addition of jelly must be nearly cold and syrupy, and each layer must be fully set before the next goes on, or the truffle points and lobster slices float out of position. Keep the working jelly in a bowl over tepid water so it stays pourable, and return the mould to ice between layers.
"Incrust a cylindrical mold in ice"Pack the mould to its rim in a bowl or bucket of crushed ice mixed with coarse salt, which holds it below freezing point of plain ice. A refrigerator works, but slowly; the ice bath is what makes layering practical.
JellyRanhofer means a clarified aspic made from fish or chicken stock and gelatin, not a sweet gelatin dessert. Modern powdered gelatin at roughly 2 to 2.5 teaspoons per cup of stock gives a jelly firm enough to unmould yet still tender.
Jellied mayonnaise (No. 613)This is mayonnaise collée: mayonnaise slackened with an equal-ish quantity of melted, cooled aspic so it sets. It must be used the moment it begins to thicken; once it sets in the bowl it cannot be smoothed out again.
Raw eggThe mayonnaise is never cooked and the finished dish sits on ice for hours. Use pasteurized eggs or a good commercial mayonnaise thinned with aspic, and keep the assembled dish refrigerated until service.
EscalopsSimply thin, even slices cut on the bias from the cooked tail meat. Cook the lobsters, chill them thoroughly, and slice cold; warm meat will weep and cloud the jelly.
Cutlet mouldsBottomless chop-shaped rings, set on oiled paper so the finished cutlets lift away cleanly. Round or oval metal ring moulds do the same job; the point is the flat bottom that becomes the top when inverted.
Truffles, pistachios, frillsThe truffle sticks and the white, yellow and green in the base are pure decoration, read upside down through the jelly once unmoulded. Fresh truffle is the intent; jarred black truffle slices behave the same way in aspic. The "fancy favor frill" is a paper cutlet frill, still sold for crown roasts.
Yield and serviceThe recipe gives no size or yield; a cylindrical mould of about a quart with a cutlet per person around it will serve six to eight as a cold first course. Bring it out at the last moment: the aspic softens quickly in a warm room.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is typical of what the book calls the cold service: elaborate moulded aspics built for a buffet table, meant to be looked at as much as eaten. Dishes of this kind were the showpieces of late nineteenth-century American restaurant cooking, when American lobster had shifted within living memory from cheap coastal food to a luxury shipped inland on ice. Ranhofer's habit of attaching a patron's name to a dish -- Lowery here, as elsewhere Newberg or Rothschild -- was standard practice in the trade and usually commemorates a regular customer rather than an inventor, though in most cases, this one included, the identity is not documented. The technique itself, layering mayonnaise collee and clarified jelly in a mould kept in salted ice, belongs to the classical French repertoire Ranhofer trained in, and survived in hotel kitchens well into the twentieth century before changing taste retired the genre.