This section is from the book "The Table: How To Buy Food, How to Cook It, and How to Serve It", by Alessandro Filippini. Also available from Amazon: The Table: How To Buy Food, How To Cook It And How To Serve It.
Select three fine, fresh lobsters, each weighing two pounds; boil them in salted water for ten minutes, then take them out and put to cool for eighteen minutes. Pick out all the meat, leaving the main body-shells intact for further use. Mince up the tail-parts, coral, and claws into pieces a quarter of an inch thick by three quarters of an inch wide. Put a sautoire containing half an ounce of fresh butter on the hot stove; chop up very fine one good-sized, sound shallot, add it to the butter in the pan, also the minced lobster, and season with a light pinch of salt, a light saltspoonful of cayenne pepper, and half a glassful of good white wine; let the whole reduce for ten minutes, stirring it meanwhile with a wooden spoon. Add one tablespoonful of tomato sauce (No. 205), four tablespoonfuls of Espagnole sauce (No. 151), and six mushroom-stalks chopped up very fine. Let cook well for ten minutes longer, then set the sautoire on the corner of the stove to keep warm. Take the three main shells of the lobsters, split them evenly in two, lengthwise, pare the ends off neatly, wash them thoroughly, and wipe them dry. These shells should not be longer than four and a half inches. Fill the six shells with the prepared lobster, lay two mushroom heads on top of each, put them on a tin plate and pour over the remainder of the sauce in the sautoire. Set them in the hot oven to bake for five minutes, then remove and dress them on a hot dish with a folded napkin, and send to the table.
 
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