Brissotins of Lobster, Indian Style

This is one of Ranhofer's shorthand entries: the method lives in No. 850 and the components in four other numbered recipes. Read it as an assembly diagram rather than a set of instructions.

• What a brissotin isA small hot entrée in which a cold salpicon is enclosed in a layer of fish or meat forcemeat, shaped, then cooked and sauced; the method itself is in No. 850, not on this page. Chilling the salpicon firm before wrapping makes the forcemeat easier to shape.
• SalpiconSimply a dice — here lobster meat and mushrooms cut small and even, bound with enough sauce to cling together and no more. A wet salpicon is the usual cause of failure.
• VeloutéA white roux sauce moistened with veal or, more appropriate here, fish stock, cooked down until it coats. For this dish it wants to be reduced thicker than a pouring sauce so the diced filling sets firm when cold.
• Pike forcemeatRanhofer's No. 76 is a pike forcemeat. Whole pike is scarce in most markets; any lean white fish — pike-perch (walleye), haddock, sole — behaves much the same way in a forcemeat. Keep everything cold while working it.
• Curry and Indian sauceNineteenth-century curry powder was generally a commercial blend, typically milder and more turmeric- and coriander-forward than many modern hot blends. Add it to the velouté and cook it briefly in the sauce rather than dumping it in raw at the end, and taste as you go: an 1894 tablespoon of curry powder is not necessarily a 2024 tablespoon.
• LobsterUse cooked tail and claw meat. If you are boiling your own, stop short — the meat gets a second cooking inside the forcemeat, and twice-cooked lobster turns fibrous.
• Yield and serviceNo quantities are given anywhere in this entry. Figure two brissotins per person as a hot side dish, sauced on the plate and served the moment they come out of the pan.
• Working from cross-referencesYou cannot cook this page alone. Have Nos. 850, 746, 415, 76 and 483 open before you start, and settle the forcemeat and salpicon a day ahead — both are better cold and firm.