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Lobster En Brochette, Diable
Plunge into plenty of boiling water two fresh lobsters of two pounds each and boil for twenty minutes. Remove and let cool off. Separate the tails and claws; carefully pick out all the meat without breaking; then cut the meat into thin one-inch pieces.
Cut an equal number of pieces of bacon same size as the lobster but exceedingly thin. Arrange the lobster and bacon alternately on six skewers, evenly divided. Season all over with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon white pepper; gently roll each skewer in devilled butter then in fresh bread crumbs. Lay them on a double broiler and broil for five minutes on each side, or until of a good golden colour. Remove, dress on a hot dish, over six hot toasts, pour one and a half tablespoons melted butter over and serve.
A straightforward broiled skewer, but the lobster is cooked twice and the original leaves margin for error on both passes. Cut the first cooking short and the dish holds together.
- Boil less than it saysTwenty minutes is long even for a 2 lb lobster; 12 to 14 minutes from the return to the boil is enough, and the meat then gets a second cooking under the broiler. Overshoot here and the finished skewers are cottony.
- Devilled butterThe book assumes you know it: softened butter worked with dry or Dijon mustard, cayenne, a little Worcestershire and lemon. Roughly 4 oz butter, 2 teaspoons mustard, a good pinch of cayenne is the working ratio for six skewers.
- "Double broiler"Not a double boiler. This is the hinged wire broiling basket that clamps food between two grids so it can be turned as a unit. A wire rack on a sheet pan, or a grill, does the same job; turn the skewers once.
- Broiler heat and timeFive minutes a side under a modern gas or electric broiler element will scorch the crumbs before the butter has warmed through. Work about 6 inches from the element and expect 3 to 4 minutes a side, watching for colour rather than clocking it.
- Bacon thinness matters"Exceedingly thin" is not decorative. Standard-cut supermarket bacon will still be flabby when the lobster is hot; buy the thinnest streaky bacon available, or stretch it with the back of a knife before cutting.
- SkewersSoak wooden skewers half an hour or they char under the broiler. Metal skewers conduct heat into the lobster from the inside and speed things along.
- SeasoningA full teaspoon of salt plus the salt in the bacon and the devilled butter is generous. Season the lobster lightly and let the butter carry the rest.
- YieldSix skewers on six toasts, so six first-course portions, or three as a main. Two 2 lb lobsters give roughly 3/4 to 1 lb of picked tail and claw meat.
"En brochette" is simply French for on a skewer, and "diable" or devilled marks anything sharpened with mustard and cayenne. The usage is English, generally traced to the eighteenth century, and by the 1900s it covered everything from kidneys to crab. The pairing of lobster with bacon on a skewer belongs to the hotel and restaurant cooking of that era, and the hinged broiling basket was in common use on a professional range. A book called The International Cook Book gathers dishes like this under the flag of French technique applied to whatever the local market offered, which is why a New England shellfish arrives here with a Parisian name.