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This is a fancy seafood sausage using a standard mousseline forcemeat, with large chunks of lobster (a mousseline is a mixture of fish or meat pureed with egg whites and/or cream). It’s delicately flavored and works beautifully with a gentle, creamy sauce, such as a lobster sauce or a creamy leek sauce. This kind of forcemeat is one of the easiest and most stable to do at home, and it’s a great way to turn a little bit of lobster into a dish that serves many people.

Fines herbes is a stellar all-purpose mixture of the soft herbs tarragon, parsley, chives, and chervil. It’s magnificent with veal, chicken, white fish, eggs, steamed new potatoes, and in many other dishes. To make it, simply combine equal parts of the minced herbs. Chervil, a very delicate and shapely herb with an anise flavor that’s a little sweeter and less assertive than tarragon; it can be hard to find in supermarkets, though, and can be omitted.

1 pound/450 grams peeled rock shrimp

1 large egg white

11⁄2 cups/375 milliliters heavy cream

2 teaspoons/10 grams kosher salt

1⁄4 teaspoon/1 gram ground white pepper

1⁄3 cup/50 grams diced leeks, blanched in boiling water until tender and chilled in an ice bath

1 cup/150 grams cooked lobster (about 5 ounces; from a 11⁄4 pound/625-gram lobster)

11⁄2 tablespoons/10 grams fines herbes (minced fresh flat-leaf parsley, chives, tarragon, and/or chervil, as available)

6 feet/1.5 meters sheep casings, soaked in tepid water for at least 30 minutes and rinsed

1. Puree the rock shrimp with the egg white in a food processor. With the processor running, add the cream slowly, then the salt and white pepper.

2. In a bowl, combine the mixture with the leeks, lobster, and herbs, folding them in gently but evenly.

3. Stuff into sheep casings and twist into 4-inch/10-centimeter links.

4. Poach in 170-degree-F./76-degree-C. stock or water to an internal temperature of 135 degrees F./55 degrees C. (Alternatively, you can form into a cylinder using plastic wrap, twist and tie the ends securely, and poach in water).

Yield: About twenty 4-inch/10-centimeter links

FOIE GRAS AND SWEETBREAD SAUSAGE

Conceived for the Team 2000 Culinary Olympics by Dan Hugelier, Brian has developed this sausage to make use of foie gras scraps. It’s written and scaled for restaurant production. We don’t really recommend it for the home cook, largely because it would require the purchase of a whole foie gras, and the best thing to do with that is not to grind it up into sausage. However, if you have a lot of foie gras scraps, or you love the idea of it, this is a superlative sausage and the amounts can be reduced proportionately. The foie gras, which is mainly fat, is emulsified into the beef along with the pork fat, adding a rich foie gras flavor to the sausage. Brian’s colleague Michael Symon loved the idea of the foie gras sausage, so he started making one with a duck farce and chunks of marinated foie and making another, purely smooth foie gras sausage, which he then smokes (“It’s a foie hot dog,” he says).

13⁄4 ounces/45 grams kosher salt (3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon)

2 teaspoons/12 grams pink salt

1⁄4 ounce/8 grams dextrose

2 1⁄2 pounds/1120 grams boneless lean beef, top round or another inexpensive cut, cut into small dice

1 pound/450 grams pork back fat, cut into small dice

1 pound/450 grams foie gras scraps

1.5 pounds/675 grams crushed ice (or frozen braising liquid reserved from Braised Sweetbreads, below)

3⁄4 ounce/22 grams Colman’s dry mustard

1⁄2 ounce/15 grams ground white pepper

1⁄4 teaspoon/1 gram garlic powder

21⁄2 ounces/70 grams nonfat dry milk powder

1 cup/100 grams chopped fresh herbs, chilled (any combination of fines herbes: flat-leaf parsley, chives, tarragon, and chervil)

1 cup/250 grams cooked diced bacon (reserve the fat for cooking the mushrooms), cooled or chilled

Braised Sweetbreads (recipe follows)

2 pounds/900 grams wild mushrooms, diced and sautéed in the reserved bacon fat, cooled