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Lobster Au Delice
Place in saucepan a sliced carrot, sliced onion, two sliced branches celery, branch parsley, sprig thyme, bay leaf, clove, tablespoon salt and gallon water. Set pan on the fire and as soon as it comes to a boiling point plunge in two two-pound live lobsters, cover pan and boil for twenty minutes. Lift up lobsters and let cool off, then crack them and pick out meat from claws and tails, split bodies in two, remove all the creamy parts and place on a plate. Cut meat in half-inch pieces and keep it also on a plate. Thoroughly heat two tablespoons good butter or oil in a large saucepan, adding six finely chopped shallots, one bean crushed garlic and all the lobsters shells, cook over a brisk fire for ten minutes, stirring once in a while. Strain one quart lobster broth into pan, add one gill white wine, and let gently boil for twenty-five minutes. Strain this broth through a cheesecloth into another saucepan, and let reduce on open fire to one-third the quantity. Knead in a cup a half ounce good butter, tablespoon flour and half teaspoon curry powder, then add it little by little to sauce. Sharply mix with whisk while adding it, then add the creamy part, half gill cream, one saltspoon cayenne and one teaspoon rum. Continually mix while incorporating, then add lobster pieces, mix well, and cook on corner of range for five minutes. Dress rice curry crown-like on large dish, pour lobster stew in centre and serve.
A two-stage dish: the lobsters are cooked in a court-bouillon, then their shells build the sauce that the meat returns to. The sauce is the whole point, so read the reduction steps before you start.
- Archaic measuresA gill is half a cup, so one gill of white wine and half a gill of cream. A saltspoon is about a quarter teaspoon. A "bean" of garlic is one clove.
- Boiling timeTwenty minutes is long for two-pound lobsters by current practice; modern guidance for a two-pounder is generally nearer 15 to 18 minutes at a hard boil, and overcooked tail meat turns fibrous. Since the meat is reheated in the sauce for a further five minutes, err short.
- The creamy partsThis means the tomalley, the olive-green liver, plus any coral in a female. It is what thickens and flavours the sauce. Note that public health agencies now advise limiting tomalley consumption because it concentrates contaminants; the sauce works without it, if less richly.
- "Corner of the range"On a coal range the corner was the coolest spot. Read it as low heat, barely trembling: the sauce contains cream and a flour-butter binding and will separate or scorch at a boil.
- The kneaded butterThe butter, flour and curry powder worked together in a cup is a beurre manie. Add it in pea-sized pieces to the simmering reduction, whisking, or it will lump. Half an ounce of butter to a tablespoon of flour is on the buttery side, so expect a soft paste rather than a stiff one.
- ReductionA quart of broth plus a gill of wine, simmered 25 minutes and then reduced by two-thirds, leaves you roughly a cup and a half of intense stock. Do this in a wide pan; a narrow one will take twice as long.
- Rice curry crownA ring of curried rice, moulded or simply banked around the edge of a hot platter. Allow about a cup and a half of raw rice, cooked with a teaspoon of curry powder, for the quantities here.
- YieldFour pounds of live lobster gives roughly a pound of picked meat. Serves four as a main course.
The name is restaurant French rather than a traditional dish name: au d/elice simply advertises that the thing is a delight. The method, though, is orthodox professional practice / cook the shellfish in an aromatic court-bouillon, then pound and sweat the shells with shallot and garlic to draw out a second, deeper extraction, and bind the result with the tomalley. Curry powder and rum turn up in lobster sauces of this era with some regularity: the curry is the legacy of Anglo-Indian cookery, which by 1900 had made a commercial curry powder a standard item in hotel kitchens on both sides of the Atlantic, while a spoonful of rum is often said to have lifted a shellfish reduction without the sweetness of sherry. The ring of rice serving out of the centre of the platter is the bordure of classical service, and appears in the international compendium cookbooks that catered to households aspiring to hotel style.