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Lobster, En Casserole
(Southern France.) Boil, pick, and cut up a fine large lobster; fry it in olive oil, adding onions and carrots, 2 of each, a bayleaf, some thyme, parsley, and half a glass of sherry or white wine. Be sure to rub the casserole or earthen saucepan with a bit of garlic before putting in the ingredients. Cook for 20 minutes, stirring it, then take out the lobster, add 1/2 cup of stewed tomatoes to the sauce and as much consomme. Cook for 10 minutes longer, put in the lobster, and serve in the casserole with slices of toast and seasoning to taste.
A Provençal-style lobster in the mould of homard à l'américaine, written for a cook who already knew how to handle earthenware over a flame. The main adjustment is time: the lobster arrives at the pan already cooked.
- "Casserole" means the pot, not the dishIn 1902 a casserole was a lidded earthenware or enamelled saucepan used on the range, and the food went to table in it. A heavy enamelled cast-iron pan is the closest modern equivalent; unglazed earthenware wants a flame diffuser to survive direct heat.
- The hinge: the lobster is already cookedTwenty minutes of frying will turn boiled lobster meat to fibre. Give the shelled meat two or three minutes in the oil to take on colour, lift it out, and build the sauce for the remaining time, returning the lobster only long enough to heat through, about a minute.
- Boiling the lobsterA "fine large lobster" here means roughly 1 1/2 to 2 lb, which needs 12 to 15 minutes in heavily salted boiling water. Save the shells and any coral; simmering the shells in the consommé for ten minutes deepens the sauce considerably.
- Half a glass of winePeriod glasses were small; the conventional wineglassful in cookbooks of the time is about 2 fl oz, which would put half a glass nearer 1 fl oz, though a sherry or drinking glass could be larger. Anything from 1 to 2 fl oz is defensible; reducing it before the tomato goes in is an optional refinement, not something the recipe asks for.
- ConsomméA clear, well-flavoured veal or chicken broth. Half a cup, matching the tomato, is what the recipe intends; a light shellfish stock made from the shells serves better still.
- Onions and carrotsTwo of each is a large amount of vegetable for one lobster unless they are cut fine. Dice them small so they soften in the twenty-minute cooking rather than remaining crunchy in a delicate sauce.
- Stewed tomatoesRead this as tomatoes simply cooked down rather than the sugared and seasoned canned product sold under that name today, though period recipes for stewed tomatoes varied and some did include butter, sugar or seasoning. Half a cup of crushed or chopped canned tomatoes, drained of excess liquid, will serve.
- Seasoning to tasteSalt, black pepper and a pinch of cayenne are the expected finish for this style; the garlic rub gives only a trace of garlic, so add a chopped clove to the vegetables if you want it to register. Serves two generously, three as a first course.
With a Saucepan Over the Sea belongs to a small genre of turn-of-the-century American books that collected dishes gathered abroad and set them down for households at home, which is why the recipe is headed simply "Southern France" rather than credited to a cook or a restaurant. The combination given here — lobster seared in olive oil, wine, tomato, garlic and a bouquet of thyme, bay and parsley, finished in the pot it is served from — is the Provençal handling of shellfish, and it is close kin to the restaurant dish homard à l'américaine, whose name has been argued over for well over a century, some tracing it to Brittany (à l'armoricaine) and others to Parisian chefs cooking for American diners in the 1860s; both accounts are traditional rather than documented. What dates the recipe most clearly is the vessel: glazed earthenware casseroles were still ordinary stovetop cookware in the French south, and the instruction to rub the pot with garlic before anything else goes in is a habit of that cuisine rather than a measured ingredient.