This section is from the book "The Epicurean", by Charles Ranhofer. Also available from Amazon: The Epicurean, a Complete Treatise of Analytical and Practical Studies on the Culinary Art.
Kill three lobsters each weighing two pounds by plunging them for two minutes into boiling water; when well drained, break off the claws from the bodies so that they occupy less room in cooking, and put the whole into a saucepan; moisten with half a bottleful of white wine, and the same quantity of water, and add cut up carrots, celery, leeks and onions, thyme, bay leaf, parsley branches and pepper corns, let all boil for twenty-five minutes, and drain off the lobsters. Detach the tails from the bodies, split the latter lengthwise to obtain all the creamy parts, which must be pressed through a sieve and laid aside. Cut the tail meat into slices, keeping all the water issuing from it; fry in either two ounces of butter or oil, the body shells after chopping them up coarsely on the table, add minced carrots, celery, onions, leeks, shallots and paprika, half of the lobster stock, and the water from the meat; let all boil for fifteen minutes, then strain through a sieve. Suppress the shells from the claws, cut up the meat the same as the tails, season with salt and fry them both with butter for two minutes over a brisk fire, then moisten with the stock, adding half a pint of veloute sauce (No. 415), and one gill of tomato puree (No. 730); let simmer for twelve minutes.
Add half the quantity of cooked mushroom heads, and the creamy parts of the lobsters, thicken with egg-yolks, one gill of cream and two ounces of butter, pour over a little burnt brandy, and less than half as much Madeira wine; dress this on a chafing dish, and serve at the same time some rice cooked in milk, seasoned with salt and lemon peel.
Wash, blanch, and cook in a white broth (No. 194a), twelve ounces of good Carolina rice, keeping it quite consistent; twenty to twenty-five minutes will suffice to have it done; keep it warm. Suppress the tail shell of a large, freshly cooked lobster; cut the meat into slices, and lay them in a sautoire; saute these, when done add the same quantity of fish quenelles (No. 90) molded in a small coffeespoon (No. 155), five or six whole hard boiled egg-yolks, a few dozen crawfish tails, and the same amount of poached and trimmed oysters. Put on to reduce five gills of veloute sauce (No. 415), pour into it slowly a few spoonfuls of fish court-bouillon (No. 38), a part of the broth from the oysters, the crawfish, a coffeespoonful of powdered curry dissolved in two spoonfuls of broth. When the sauce has become thick and succulent, strain it, and return it to the saucepan to heat once more, then cover the garnishings with a small part of it, keeping it in a bain-marie, while the remainder is to be set on the side of the range, and butter worked into it.
Dress the lobster, in a chafing dish dome-shape, with the garnishing around, and on top lay symmetrically four cooked crawfish, having their tails shelled, and pour a little of the sauce over the lobster; lay a round truffle on the summit of the dome, and send to the table at once with a sauce-boat of the buttered sauce. The rice to be served separately.
 
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