Recipe: Gratin of Sole and Lobster Cardinal

Gratin of Sole and Lobster Cardinal

Recipe By: Fonds de Cuisine after Escoffier
Serving Size: 6
Preparation Time: 1:00
Categories: Fish Main Courses Shellfish

1 cup lobster stock *
2 tbs butter Cardinal *
1-1/2 tbs flour
1/4 cup whipped cream unsweetened
2 cups Sauce Cardinal *
1 recipe Quenelles of Sole Poached and ready—Mousselines
1 cup lobster meat sliced or diced—warmed
* see Lobster Hollandaise or Cardinal

1. Make a roux of Cardinal butter and flour. Cook it lightly and add the lobster stock. Bring to a boil, simmer and season with salt and cayenne pepper. This is a lobster veloute.

2. Blend the Sauce Cardinal with the whipped cream by tempering, adding a little of the sauce to the whipped cream and mixing well. This makes it a mousseline sauce.

3. Now temper the Mousseline Cardinal with the hot, seasoned lobster veloute. Watch your step here. A little of the strong (the hot lobster veloute) into a lot of the weak (the Mousseline Cardinal ). Taste and reseason. If you would like it a bit lighter you can add some more whipped cream.

4. Plate the mousselines or quenelles of sole and sprinkle them with diced or sliced lobster meat.

5. Coat them with the finished sauce Cardinal you have just compounded. If you like, you can fill the well of the plate with sauce.

6. Slip the plates under the broiler to just brown the tops. Pay attention to what you are doing, as this can go to hell in no time. Try a practice plate with just sauce. You must broil, you cannot bake this sauce. Cowards may omit this step and spoil the whole thing with a sprinkle of very red paprika.

For the brave. Fill empty lobster tails with the quenelle mixture and poach them in lightly salted water just their own height plus a half inch. Then glaze them on the plate, meat side up. Add the lobster head and whiskers, cut to stay still on the plate, so it looks like a lobster. The rule of inedible garniture does not apply to lobster shells used with the meat that came from them, imho.

Notes: This is a difficult assembly, but is a great attention getter. Try it out by yourself the first time, before you serve it to company.