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Broiled Lobster, Sauce Ravigote
Cut away the large and small claws from three live lobsters of one and a quarter pounds each. Split each one in two; arrange on a double broiler; season with a teaspoon salt and two saltspoons paprika and baste with a tablespoon oil. Crack the claws with a cleaver, place in a small tin and bake in the hot oven for twenty minutes. Broil the six half lobsters on a brisk fire, the cut parts upward, for ten minutes; then place in a hot oven to bake for ten minutes more. Nicely dress all the lobsters on a large, hot dish with a folded napkin and serve with a hot Ravigote sauce in a bowl separately.
A straightforward split-and-broil treatment that assumes a coal range and a cook who buys lobsters alive. The measurements translate cleanly; the timings need judgement.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so two saltspoons of paprika is half a teaspoon. The teaspoon of salt and tablespoon of oil are spread across six half lobsters, which is light seasoning by modern standards.
- Double broilerThis is the hinged wire broiling basket that clamped food between two grids for turning over a fire, not a double boiler. A sheet pan under a preheated overhead broiler does the same work; keep the cut faces up as directed, bearing in mind that over the original fire the shell faced the heat, while under an overhead element it is the cut meat that takes it.
- Hot ovenRead "hot" as 425-450F. The claws go in for twenty minutes at that heat, the bodies for a final ten after broiling.
- Killing the lobsterSplitting a live lobster is the point at which many cooks hesitate. Drive a heavy knife tip down through the head behind the eyes and then split lengthwise, or chill the lobster thoroughly in the freezer for fifteen minutes first to dull it. A pound-and-a-quarter lobster is small and quick to handle.
- Total cooking timeTwenty minutes of combined heat on a 1.25 lb lobster is generous. Lobster meat is done at 135-140F and turns cottony past that; on a modern broiler, ten minutes under the element is usually enough on its own, with the oven finish reserved for larger animals or thick-shelled claws.
- The clawsCracking them before cooking is the instruction worth keeping. Whole claws in a hot oven overcook at the tip before the knuckle is warm, and cracked shells let the seasoning and heat reach the meat.
- Ravigote sauceThe hot version is a velouté or reduced butter sauce sharpened with vinegar, shallot and chopped fresh herbs, typically chervil, tarragon, chives and parsley. There is also a cold ravigote, essentially a herbed vinaigrette; this recipe specifies hot, so make that one.
- YieldSix halves, so three lobsters serve three as a main course or six as a first course. The folded napkin on the platter would have absorbed juices and kept the halves from sliding, and was also standard hotel presentation.
Ravigote takes its name from the French ravigoter, to perk up or revive, and the sauce has existed in both hot and cold forms since at least the eighteenth century; the hot version belongs to the family of white sauces sharpened with vinegar and finished with green herbs. Pairing it with broiled lobster is a restaurant convention of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when hotel kitchens in Paris, London and New York shared a common repertoire and a common French vocabulary. That is the world The International Cook Book came out of: its author, Alexander Filippini, spent decades at Delmonico's in New York, and the recipe reads like a service note from a professional kitchen, specifying three lobsters at a fixed weight. The instruction to dress the halves on a folded napkin is pure hotel dining room.