Homard à l’Américaine

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Wide 5½ to 6-quart (5.2 to 5.7 litre) ovenproof sauté pan with a tight lid
• •Heavy chef's knife and sturdy kitchen shears
• •Lobster crackers or the flat side of a heavy cleaver
• •Long match or long-reach lighter
• •Tongs and a heatproof tray
• •Fine-mesh strainer
• •Wide oval serving platter

Instructions

1. 1

   Ready the kitchen

   Set a rack in the middle of the oven and heat it to 400°F (200°C). Measure every sauce ingredient before touching the lobsters, place the cold finishing butter back in the refrigerator, and warm a wide serving platter with hot water. Blanch half the persil concassé in boiling water for 10 seconds, cool it under cold water, squeeze it dry, and reserve it for the finish. Once the lobster is cut, the cooking must move without interruption.

2. 2

   Dispatch and portion

   Have the fishmonger dispatch the live lobsters immediately before pickup if you can reach the stove within 30 minutes. Otherwise dispatch them just before cutting, using an approved method and following local animal-welfare guidance. Sever the claws and crack each one lightly so the sauce can enter without the meat escaping. Cut each tail crosswise into three sections, then split the head shell lengthwise. Discard the gravelly stomach sac near the head and the dark intestinal vein. Reserve any clean coral and creamy liver in a cold bowl, season the shell pieces with the salt and pepper, and cook at once.

   The old instruction's word intestines does not mean the stomach sac or tail vein; both are discarded. Reserve only clean coral and creamy liver, and use the liver only where local seafood guidance permits. If guidance advises against it, omit the liver and use the coral alone.
3. 3

   Sear the shells

   Heat the oil and searing butter in a wide, heavy ovenproof sauté pan over high heat until the butter's foam subsides and the fat is very hot. Add the lobster pieces in two batches, cut sides down first, and fry them for 2 to 3 minutes per batch, turning until the exposed meat stiffens and every shell becomes a vivid red. Do not cook the meat through. Crowding lowers the heat and boils the lobster in its own juices, so give the pieces room and let the shells build a proper fond.

4. 4

   Drain and season

   Lift the lobster pieces onto a tray. Carefully pour the hot cooking fat into a heatproof bowl, leaving the browned fond and only a thin film of fat in the pan, then return all the lobster. Scatter over the shallots and garlic and toss over medium-high heat for 30 seconds, just until their raw smell softens. The draining stays because a butter sauce cannot begin under a lake of frying oil.

5. 5

   Flame and braise

   Take the pan off the heat and turn off any extractor fan. Pour the measured brandy from its cup, never from the bottle, over the lobster and ignite it with a long match. Stand back and let the flame die naturally. Add the white wine, fish fumet, melted meat glaze, tomatoes or tomato purée, the unblanched parsley, and cayenne. Stir once, cover tightly, and cook in the oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until the lobster meat is opaque and reaches 145°F (63°C) at its thickest point.

   If the brandy does not ignite, don't keep striking matches over the pan. Return it to medium heat and boil for one minute to cook away the raw alcohol, then continue. The flavour survives without the spectacle.
6. 6

   Extract the meat

   Transfer the lobster pieces to a tray and pour the hot water from the serving platter. Remove the tail and claw meat while the shells are still warm enough to handle, keeping the pieces as whole as possible. Arrange the meat loosely on the warm platter and set a few cleaned red shell sections behind it if you like. Cover lightly with foil and keep it near the stove, not in the oven, where it would toughen. Building two carapace halves upright into a timbale serves presentation, not flavour, and one cook has better work to do.

7. 7

   Reduce and strain

   Set the uncovered pan over high heat and reduce the cooking liquor to about 1½ cups plus 1 tablespoon (375 ml). It should smell concentrated, lose the raw edge of tomato and wine, and lightly coat a spoon. If it is still watery, keep reducing now; you cannot boil it down after the final butter enters. Lower the heat, stir in the reserved coral and permitted creamy liver with the softened butter, and hold at a gentle simmer for 60 to 90 seconds, until the coral turns orange-red. Pass the sauce through a fine-mesh strainer into a clean saucepan, pressing firmly on the solids.

8. 8

   Mount the sauce

   Heat the strained sauce only until the first small tremor appears at its edge, then remove it from the heat. Monter au beurre by whisking in the cold butter a few cubes at a time, adding each portion only after the last has disappeared. The finished sauce should nap the spoon in a smooth brick-red gloss. Never let it boil. If it turns greasy or separates, put 1 teaspoon of the cold water in a clean bowl and whisk in the broken sauce one spoonful at a time until it comes back together, adding another teaspoon of water only if needed. Ça se rattrape.

9. 9

   Sauce and serve

   Taste the sauce now, after reduction, and adjust the salt only if it needs it. Pour it generously over the warm lobster, letting it pool around the tail and claw meat, then scatter the blanched parsley over the top. Carry the platter straight to the table with bread close by for the sauce. À table!

Chef Tips

• •Choose lively, hard-shell lobsters and ask for females if you want the best chance of finding coral, though no fishmonger can promise what is inside. Lobster begins losing sweetness as soon as it is dispatched, so this is the one ingredient you don't prepare hours ahead.
• •Tomalley, the lobster's creamy liver, can concentrate marine toxins that cooking does not remove. Follow current local seafood advice. If it is discouraged or no coral appears, omit it and mount the reduced sauce with butter alone; the sauce will be less deeply marine, but it will still bind properly.
• •Fish fumet and meat glaze are concentrated foundations, not ordinary salty stock. Use prepared unsalted versions with clean flavour. Bouillon cubes make the reduced sauce punishingly salty, and reduction magnifies every fault.
• •Flambage is controlled burning, not theater. Measure the brandy, remove the pan from the burner, turn off the fan, keep the bottle away, and have the lid beside you so the pan can be covered immediately if the flame climbs.
• •Pour the same dry white wine you used in the pan, or open a structured dry rosé from Provence. The tomato and brandy need more backbone than a fragile, sharply acidic white can give.
• •Homard à l’Américaine is best served at once. If leftovers remain, chill them promptly and warm them very gently the next day, keeping the sauce below a simmer so the butter emulsion stays whole.

Advance Preparation

• •The fish fumet and meat glaze can be prepared or purchased up to 2 days ahead and kept cold. Measure them before service so the covered cooking can begin the moment the shells are seared.
• •The shallots, garlic, tomatoes, and parsley can be prepared up to 4 hours ahead. Keep them covered and cold, with the blanched finishing parsley stored separately.
• •Do not cut the lobsters ahead. The sauce may wait only until the cold butter is mounted, and after that it must be served promptly without boiling or prolonged holding.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 320g)