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Devilled Broiled Lobster
Cut three fine, small, raw lobsters of one pound each into two equal halves, lengthwise. Remove the gravel from the head, cut off the claws and crack them carefully with a cleaver. Arrange the claws on a broiler and broil for ten minutes on each side. Remove them and carefully pick out all the meat; then chop it into small pieces and place on a plate. Season with a saltspoon salt and two tablespoons devilled butter. Mix all well and keep in a cool place until required.
Carefully place the six half lobsters on a double broiler and broil on a lively fire on the shell side for ten minutes; then place in the oven for ten minutes. Remove from the oven and carefully take off the lobsters from the broiler. Spread the above preparation evenly over the six half lobsters, sprinkle a little bread crumbs over each, then lay two little bits of butter on the surface of each. Arrange them on a tin pan, then bake in the oven until they obtain a nice golden colour. Remove from the oven, dress on a hot dish and serve with six quarters of lemon, and parsley greens if handy.
A straightforward broil-then-bake treatment of split lobster, written for a coal range and a hinged wire broiler. Two things need translating: the devilled butter, which the original assumes you already have, and the oven, which is never given a temperature.
- Devilled butterThe recipe assumes a compound butter already made and kept on hand; the book gives no formula here. The usual period version is softened butter worked with dry English mustard, cayenne, a little Worcestershire and lemon. Roughly 4 oz butter to 2 teaspoons mustard, half a teaspoon cayenne and a teaspoon of Worcestershire is a reasonable proportion for two tablespoons to season three lobsters' worth of claw meat.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. It is the smallest measure in period silver services and appears constantly in this book.
- Oven temperatureNo number is given in the recipe. Use 425F for the ten-minute stint after broiling and for the final browning, which will take 5 to 8 minutes rather than an indefinite wait for colour.
- Killing and splittingThe lobsters go into the pan raw and split. Drive the point of a heavy knife through the head behind the eyes before halving lengthwise, or chill them 20 minutes in the freezer first. "Remove the gravel from the head" means discarding the stomach sac behind the eyes; the green tomalley is edible and traditionally left in.
- The claws are overcooked on purposeTwenty minutes of broiling is a great deal for claws, but they are being cooked to be picked, chopped and re-baked. Ten minutes total under a hot broiler, turning once, is enough to release the meat cleanly and leaves it in better shape for the second cooking.
- Broiler versus grillA "double broiler" is a hinged wire basket held over live coals. A modern grill over direct heat is the closest equivalent; under a domestic overhead broiler, put the halves shell side up on a rack about four inches from the element.
- One-pound lobstersChicken lobsters of a pound apiece are still sold and are the right size here. Much over a pound and a half and the timing given here is likely to be short, and the halves are larger than the dish is written for.
- YieldSix halves, intended as six portions in a multi-course dinner. As a main course it serves three.
This comes from Alessandro Filippini's The International Cook Book (1906), written by a man who spent decades in the Delmonico's kitchens in New York, and the recipe carries the marks of that trade: small lobsters bought by the piece, a compound butter kept ready in the cold room, and a dish assembled in stages so it can be finished to order. "Devilled" in nineteenth-century English cookery means seasoned hot with mustard and cayenne, a usage generally traced to the late eighteenth century and applied to everything from kidneys to biscuits to bones left from a joint. American lobster was abundant and cheap enough through the 1800s to be everyday food along the northeastern coast, and its rise to luxury status owed something to the restaurants of New York and Boston, Delmonico's among them, but also to rail transport, the decline of the canning trade and pressure on supply. The final crumbing and browning is a standard hotel finish of the period, giving a plated dish colour and a little texture against the soft meat.