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Molded Lobster in Aspic
Cover a little more than a quarter of a box of gelatine with half a cup of cold water, and allow it to soak. Put into a saucepan a sliced very small carrot, a slice of onion, a few celery tops, a bay leaf and one pint of clear white stock. Bring slowly to a boil; add a half teaspoonful of salt, a dash of cayenne, the juice of half a lemon and the gelatine. Mix and strain. Put a layer of this in small molds or egg cups. When hard, fill with bits of boiled lobster. Pour over sufficient of the aspic to cover. Stand aside on the ice for several hours. Serve on lettuce leaves with mayonnaise dressing.
A cold gelatine mold of the sort that filled the luncheon and buffet pages of turn-of-the-century books. The technique is straightforward; the measurements are the part that needs translating.
- A quarter box of gelatineA box of granulated gelatine of this period is usually reckoned at about 1 ounce, in four portions of roughly 2 to 2 1/2 teaspoons each, though box sizes were not standard. "A little more than a quarter of a box" comes out close to one modern 1/4-ounce envelope, or a scant tablespoon, about what is needed to set 1 pint of liquid firmly enough to unmold.
- Clear white stockAn unsalted veal or chicken stock, simmered without browning the bones so it stays pale. A good low-sodium chicken stock works; if it is cloudy the aspic will be cloudy, since straining through cheesecloth removes solids but not haze.
- The hinge: set the bottom layer firstThe thin layer poured in and chilled before the lobster goes in is what keeps the meat suspended off the base and gives a clean top surface when turned out. Skipping it leaves the lobster packed against the mold and the finished shape muddy.
- Stand aside on the iceThe refrigerator. Four hours will set these small molds; overnight is better and does no harm.
- Boiled lobsterThe recipe gives no quantity; the meat of one 1 1/4-pound lobster, roughly 4 to 5 ounces picked, cut in pieces small enough to pack loosely. Claw meat holds its shape better than tail slices in a mold this size.
- Molds and yieldEgg cups or 1/3-cup dariole molds; with the lobster taking up space, 1 pint of aspic will fill something like six to eight of them, depending on the cups. To unmold, dip the outside briefly in warm water and invert onto the lettuce.
- Seasoning cold foodTaste the strained aspic while it is still warm and season it slightly past what seems right. Gelatine and cold both flatten salt, lemon and cayenne noticeably.
Aspic sat at the center of genteel cold cookery from the 1880s through the 1920s, when commercial granulated gelatine sold by the box made a jelly that had previously required a day of boiling calves' feet and clarifying with egg white. The vegetable and bay-leaf infusion here is the older court-bouillon habit surviving into the packaged-gelatine era: the stock is flavored as if it were going to be a soup, then set. The finish on lettuce with mayonnaise marks it as a salad course in the American sense of the term at the time, when "salad" often meant something molded, dressed and served on a leaf rather than a bowl of greens.