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Lobster and Oyster Plant Mousse
(Paris.) Boil, pound, and press through a sieve the flesh of a lobster, add 1 tablespoonful of mayonnaise, the same of melted aspic jelly, and 1/2 pint of whipped cream. Pour into a border mould and set on ice to harden. Boil and cut into dice sufficient salsify to fill the centre when turned out, and mix it with some mayonnaise dressing. Serve cold.
A cold ring mousse of the sort that filled the cold-table section of turn-of-the-century French menus. It is simple work, but two things in the original need attention: the setting agent and the vegetable's name.
- Oyster plant is salsifyThe title uses one name, the recipe text the other. Salsify is a long, thin, beige-skinned root sold in some greengrocers and farm markets in autumn and winter; scorzonera, its black-skinned relative, behaves the same way. Peel under acidulated water and drop the pieces straight into more lemon water, as the cut flesh browns within minutes.
- The setting agent is underpoweredOne tablespoon of melted aspic is unlikely to hold half a pint of whipped cream plus lobster in a turned-out shape. The recipe presumably assumes a strong aspic and a very cold larder, neither of which it specifies. For a mousse that will unmould reliably, count on about 2 teaspoons of powdered gelatine bloomed and dissolved in a scant half cup of fish or light chicken stock.
- How much creamHalf a pint is 1 cup in American measure and 10 fl oz in British, and the book gives no indication which it means. A cup of cream to the meat of a lobster of about 1 1/2 lb gives a mousse that still tastes of lobster; more than that and it goes bland.
- Pound and press through a sieveThis is the one step a modern kitchen can shortcut honestly. A food processor plus a single pass through a fine sieve or tamis gives the same texture in a fraction of the time, and the sieving is what keeps stray membrane out of the mousse.
- Border mouldA ring mould, plain or fluted, of about 1 quart capacity. Oil it very lightly with a neutral oil rather than lining it, and dip it in warm water for five seconds before turning out.
- Setting time"Set on ice to harden" means packing the mould in ice or standing it in an ice chest. Four hours in the refrigerator is the practical minimum; overnight is better.
- Raw egg in the mayonnaiseBoth the mousse and the salsify are dressed with uncooked mayonnaise and the dish is never heated. If serving anyone pregnant, elderly, or immune-compromised, use pasteurised eggs or a commercial mayonnaise.
- YieldA quart ring serves six as a first course, four as a light lunch. Serve it cold but not straight from the refrigerator; ten minutes at room temperature brings the lobster flavour forward.
Salsify earned its English nickname because the boiled root is often said to taste faintly of oysters, and nineteenth-century American and British kitchen gardens grew it steadily under that name before it slipped out of common use. The dish itself is pure Parisian restaurant grammar: a pounded, sieved flesh lightened with whipped cream, bound with aspic, set in a border mould and its centre filled at the last moment. Escoffier and his contemporaries built whole cold buffets on that pattern, and the ring shape existed precisely so the empty middle could carry a contrasting salad. So a French cold-larder preparation sits here beside plainer English and American fish cookery.