Victoria Patties

A cross-referenced filling from Ranhofer's The Epicurean, written for a kitchen brigade that had lobster sauce and baked shells already standing by. The whole dish is assembly, and the only real technique is heat control.

• The hinge: no boilingLobster sauce of this period is typically a fish-stock sauce finished with lobster butter, and often cream; enrichments of this kind can break if boiled, and the lobster meat toughens. Heat to the point where steam just rises, no further.
• The cross-referencesNo. 488 is Ranhofer's lobster sauce; No. 934 is his prepared patty shells, presumably of puff paste. Neither is on this page. Any good lobster sauce works, as do bought all-butter puff pastry vol-au-vent cases, baked blind and dried out in the oven so they do not soften under the filling.
• Three-sixteenths of an inchAbout 5 mm, a fine, even dice, small enough that a spoonful of filling holds together and nothing protrudes from the shell. It is the sort of fine dice used for a salpicon, and consistency matters more than the exact fraction.
• Lobster meatFigure roughly 8 oz picked cooked meat and 6–8 oz sauce for a dozen small bouchées. Claw and knuckle meat dices better than tail, which tends to shred along the grain.
• TrufflesThe recipe specifies only truffles; black winter truffle, fresh or preserved, is the likely intent. It is costly today; a small jarred truffle, or truffle peelings, gives the colour contrast the dish is built on. Truffle oil does not, and will fight the lobster.
• CayenneA dash means a dash — enough to lift the sauce, not to register as heat. Add it to the sauce and taste before the lobster goes in, since the meat mutes seasoning.
• ServingThe folded napkin is period presentation, as the recipe directs. Fill at the last moment and serve immediately; a filled puff shell begins to go limp within a few minutes.