No. 2533

Lobster Tails in Their Shells

Queues de Homards dans leurs Coquilles

Detach the bodies, claws and tails from five small cooked lobsters; open the claw shells to remove the meats. Cut the five lobster tails lengthways, both meat and shell together; remove the meats from these ten halved shells, wipe the shells neatly, and fill the bottoms with a layer of preparation made with the lobster parings, truffles and mushrooms, mingled with a little chaudfroid sauce (No. 606), and finished with a dash of cayenne pepper. Season the tail meats and cut them up slanting without spoiling their shape, and dip them into half-set jelly; then replace each one in its half shell, the red side uppermost, and lay them aside in a cool place. This entree is to be dressed on a dish foundation having in the center a pyramidical support, both of which are to be covered with white paper, then with a layer of thick chopped jelly pushed through a pocket; the halved tails are to be dressed with the points upward, five on each side; the claws are to stand upright on top of the support, and surrounded by green parsley leaves. The base of the halved tails is also to be surrounded by fresh parsley, and the bottom of the dish with pretty jelly croutons (No. 2442). As soon as the entree is dressed place it in the ice-box until ready to serve, then send it to the table with a separate mayonnaise sauce (No. 606).

← No. 2532 Lobster in a Border Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2534 Lobster or Spiny Lobster with Mayonnaise →

For the Modern Kitchen

A cold buffet centrepiece from Ranhofer's The Epicurean, built on lobster tails returned to their own split shells and set with aspic. Nothing here is difficult, but the whole thing depends on temperature control and on having the jelly at exactly the right stage.

The hinge: half-set jelly"Half-set" means aspic cooled to the consistency of raw egg white — it should coat the medallions in a thin glossy film rather than running off or clinging in lumps. Set a bowl of jelly over ice water and stir until it just begins to thicken, and re-warm gently if it goes too far.
Small lobstersRanhofer specifies only "small" lobsters and gives no weights; the point is tails of a scale that suits a five-a-side arrangement. Five of them yield ten half-shells; larger lobsters throw the proportions off.
Chaudfroid sauceA velouté or béchamel-based sauce enriched with cream and set with aspic or gelatin, used cold as a coating. Here only a little is needed, as a binder for the chopped filling — it should hold the mixture together, not soak it.
The cross-referenceThe text cites No. 606 for both the chaudfroid and the mayonnaise, which cannot be right for two different sauces. Use any standard chaudfroid for the filling and a plain mayonnaise for the sauceboat.
Splitting the tailsCut through meat and shell together with a heavy knife so the shell halves stay clean-edged, then lift the meat out in one piece. Wipe the shells and dry them thoroughly, or the filling will slide.
Cutting the meat "slanting"Slice each tail on a steep bias into medallions but keep them in order and pressed together, so the reassembled tail reads as whole when it goes back in the shell. The red side of each slice faces up.
Dish foundation and supportThe "foundation" and "pyramidical support" are a socle — in period kitchens often rice paste, bread or wood — used purely as an armature and masked with paper and chopped jelly. A small inverted bowl or a block of foam covered the same way does the job; none of it is eaten.
Jelly croutonsFirmly set aspic turned out and cut into neat dice or triangles, used as a glittering border. Set the jelly deep enough that the cut shapes hold their edges.
Keeping and servingCold shellfish under aspic should go back to the refrigerator the moment it is dressed and come out only to be served; the jelly softens quickly at room temperature. The recipe yields ten dressed half-tails.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially the house's working repertoire written down — some twelve hundred pages of it, French in technique and numbering, American in scale. Dishes like this belong to the era of cuisine froide, the branch of the profession devoted to buffet display: aspic, chaudfroid, socles and carved supports, where a cook's standing was measured by how architecturally he could present something that would be eaten cold. Returning the meat to its own shell, glazed and reassembled, is a very old conceit in the grand style — the diner is meant to see the lobster restored to itself, standing upright with its claws crowning the pyramid. That the whole scaffold beneath is paper-covered wood or paste, and never eaten, is entirely in keeping; the point was the tableau carried into the room, not the dish it stood on.