Homard à la Broche (Spit-Roasted Lobster)

Ingredients

• 1 large live lobster
• 125 grammes butter
• A third of a bottle of dry Champagne
• 1 pinch salt
• 6 peppercorns
• First accompaniment: cold sauce Ravigote
• Second accompaniment: 2 spoonfuls glace de viande
• 1 and a half spoonfuls Worcestershire sauce
• 1 pinch chopped parsley
• 75 grammes butter
• A few drops lemon juice

Instructions

1. Kill a large live lobster and fix it on the spit.
2. Put the butter, the dry Champagne, the salt and the peppercorns into the dripping-pan.
3. Roast, basting the lobster almost continuously with this mixture; allow about 40 minutes for a lobster of 1 kilo.
4. Arrange the lobster and accompany it in one of two ways.
5. First way: strain the cooking liquor, skim off the fat and add it to a cold sauce Ravigote.
6. Second way: pass the cooking liquor through a fine chinois, skim off the fat and reduce it briskly by three quarters.
7. Add the glace de viande, the Worcestershire sauce and the chopped parsley.
8. Finish this sauce with the 75 grammes of butter and a few drops of lemon juice.