Jane Grigson's Fish Book - Jane Grigson [107]
Raise the heat under the sauce and boil it down hard to a good flavour. Correct seasoning. Stir in the coral/flour butter, or flour/ butter mixture, in little bits: cook just under boiling point for 5 minutes until the sauce thickens. Add herbs; pour it over the fish. Serve with boiled and butter rice.
L’ARMORICAINE Use butter instead of olive oil, and cream instead of stock – either double cream, or double and soured cream, half and half. Beat a final 30 g (1 oz) of butter into the sauce when it is ready. Add lemon juice.
LOBSTER ALLA MARINARA
This is a simpler, Italian version of Lobster à l’américaine. The seasoning of the marinara sauce can be varied – it can be made hot with cayenne, or sharpened by the addition of a tablespoon of vinegar and a teaspoon or two of French mustard. Three hundred ml (10 fl oz) of the sauce can be softened by the addition of 150 ml (5 fl oz) of boiling cream – with Marsala as a final flavouring. Warning: be sure to get the sauce right, i.e. right to your taste, before adding the lobster, and remember that mustard loses its virtue if it is cooked – always add it as a last seasoning.
Serves 4
1 large or 2 small lobsters, live
olive oil
250–300 ml (8–10 fl oz) mussel or clam liquor
1 medium onion, quartered
salt, pepper
marinara sauce*
walnut-sized lump of butter
Unless you have some already prepared, prepare the ingredients for the marinara sauce, and set it to cook. Cut the lobster in pieces as for Lobster à l’américaine. Heat up a large heavy frying pan, covered with a thin layer of olive oil. Turn the lobster pieces in the hot oil until they turn red (about 10 minutes). Add the mussel or clam juice – from a previous day’s cooking, or from bottle or can – and the onion. Season with salt and pepper if necessary. After another 10–15 minutes, remove the onion, and turn the lobster and juices into the pan of hot, sieved marinara sauce. Stir in the butter and serve immediately.
NOTE If boiled lobster has to be used, simmer the mussel or clam liquor with the onion for 15 minutes. Add to the hot marinara sauce with the sliced lobster, and heat through. Add butter last of all.
GRILLED LOBSTER
3 lobsters, ready boiled or 3 crawfish
1 onion, chopped
60 g (2 oz) butter
1 glass dry white wine or dry sherry
béchamel* or Mornay* or Normande* sauce, etc.
mustard or chopped anchovies or grated cheese (mixed Gruyère/Parmesan)
salt, pepper, cayenne
breadcrumbs
grated Gruyère
melted butter
Remove and crack the lobster claws; take out the meat and dice it. Split the lobsters or crawfish in half lengthwise, remove the tail meat and coral and soft parts, chop them and add to the claw meat. Discard the rest, scraping the shells as cleanly as possible.
Cook the onion in butter until soft. Add the alcohol, and reduce to 1½ tablespoons. Stir in the chosen sauce and add mustard, anchovies or cheese to taste. Season. Put some of this sauce in the base of each shell, then the meat, then some more sauce. Mix the breadcrumbs and cheese and sprinkle them on top; pour a little melted butter over them. Arrange on a baking sheet, and set under the grill until hot and bubbling, and lightly browned.
To steady the half-lobsters or crawfish, put two bands of crushed kitchen foil for the ends to rest on.
CURRIED LOBSTER Add two teaspoonfuls of curry powder, with the béchamel sauce. Do not add any other flavouring, apart from the Gruyère and breadcrumbs for the topping.
LOBSTER WITH OYSTERS (OR CLAMS OR MUSSELS) As grilled lobster above. Use a béchamel sauce, and add anchovies only as the piquancy. Arrange a line of shelled oysters (or clams or mussels) along each half-shell before sprinkling on the breadcrumbs and cheese. Serve with lemon quarters.
LOBSTER THERMIDOR As grilled lobster above, using a béchamel or Mornay sauce; and cheese and French mustard as the piquancy.
LOBSTER IN GIN
Under French influence, one tends to think that brandy is the only spirit worth using in