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serindeI am intending to serve a Regency-era dinner in honor of the Glorious First of June. I've had the appropriate culinary reference for quite some time but haven't taken full advantage of it; and I figured if I didn't make a firm commitment--i.e., one that I made to other people--it wasn't going to happen. So.
Dinners of the era started with soup. What soup? All of the ones in the book look equally complicated and painstaking, so had not made up my mind until I went into the store today (to get stuff for Forcemeat, which I failed at anyways) and there was a big sign saying WE NOW HAVE LIVE LOBSTERS!! Okay, bisque du homard it is.
This of course requires taking live lobsters. And killing them. So what, right? They're sea bugs and I hate bugs, and though I certainly don't want to be cruelly torturous, there are ways to humanely kack them. Got 'em home, took a bunch of pictures of the cats looking confusedly at them (Fizzgig was licking the shell of one of them; I think she wanted to keep it) and prepared to commit bug murder. The cookbook says that the traditional method is to sever the spinal cord with a knife, which is an insta-kill, but that the lobster will twitch around for some time after this and if this disconcerts you then you can immerse the creature in boiling water briefly instead. (Also an insta-kill, but less twitching.)
Heated up the stockpot. Water was between simmer and boil, which I thought would be fine; I put the lobster in. NOT INSTAKILL OH GOD. It was twitching and did so for a minute or thereabouts. I wigged a bit.
Fine, we'll do the knife then since I seem to be incompetent at parboiling. Lined up #2, sharpened my good chef's knife, poised it at the tail join and hacked down with a mighty blow. It wasn't quite instant, it's hard to get through the shell connector, but the tail was off in under a second. MOTHERFUCKER KEPT MOVING AROUND FOR TEN MINUTES AGHGHGH. I wigged but hard. I called M & K for reassurance, but they'd never done a lobster either. K suggested looking at Julie/Julia, and indeed, Julie had the exact same experience when making Homard a l'Americaine. I felt a little better. Apparently lobsters are just like that. They're dead dead dead but the body hasn't gotten the message.
By this time the pot of water I'd forgotten about was at a roiling boil. #3 and #4 died as swiftly as advertised.
Now I shall have a little lie-down.
Dinners of the era started with soup. What soup? All of the ones in the book look equally complicated and painstaking, so had not made up my mind until I went into the store today (to get stuff for Forcemeat, which I failed at anyways) and there was a big sign saying WE NOW HAVE LIVE LOBSTERS!! Okay, bisque du homard it is.
This of course requires taking live lobsters. And killing them. So what, right? They're sea bugs and I hate bugs, and though I certainly don't want to be cruelly torturous, there are ways to humanely kack them. Got 'em home, took a bunch of pictures of the cats looking confusedly at them (Fizzgig was licking the shell of one of them; I think she wanted to keep it) and prepared to commit bug murder. The cookbook says that the traditional method is to sever the spinal cord with a knife, which is an insta-kill, but that the lobster will twitch around for some time after this and if this disconcerts you then you can immerse the creature in boiling water briefly instead. (Also an insta-kill, but less twitching.)
Heated up the stockpot. Water was between simmer and boil, which I thought would be fine; I put the lobster in. NOT INSTAKILL OH GOD. It was twitching and did so for a minute or thereabouts. I wigged a bit.
Fine, we'll do the knife then since I seem to be incompetent at parboiling. Lined up #2, sharpened my good chef's knife, poised it at the tail join and hacked down with a mighty blow. It wasn't quite instant, it's hard to get through the shell connector, but the tail was off in under a second. MOTHERFUCKER KEPT MOVING AROUND FOR TEN MINUTES AGHGHGH. I wigged but hard. I called M & K for reassurance, but they'd never done a lobster either. K suggested looking at Julie/Julia, and indeed, Julie had the exact same experience when making Homard a l'Americaine. I felt a little better. Apparently lobsters are just like that. They're dead dead dead but the body hasn't gotten the message.
By this time the pot of water I'd forgotten about was at a roiling boil. #3 and #4 died as swiftly as advertised.
Now I shall have a little lie-down.
