La Baule style Lobster

First, make the green sauce, peel and stone the avocado. Place all the ingredients in a liquidizer and mix until a smooth green cream. Chill.

Tie the claws of the spiny lobster together and cook in court bouillon (fish stock). Cook the crabs and scampi in the same way. Allow cooling. Cook the mussels until the shells open as for mussels mariniere.

Cut away the membrane under the tail of the spiny lobsters and remove the flesh in one piece. Cut the flesh into medallions, coat with mayonnaise, decorate and glaze with aspic jelly.

Remove the crabmeat from the shell, chop it coarsely and mix with a few finely chopped shallots that have been gently cooked under cover in dry white wine. Bind with a few spoonfuls of American sauce to make a smooth, well-blended forcemeat. Check the seasoning.

Shell the scampi tails and set aside the heads. Remove the beard from the mussels and set aside I2 choice shells. Stuff the scampi heads with the crab forcemeat and top each one with a scampi tail, which has been decorated and glazed with aspic. Fill the mussel shells with the same forcemeat. Coat with green sauce. Place a choice mussel on top, decorate and glaze with aspic. Shell the prawn tails and glaze with aspic.

To dish, decorate an oblong tray with a mosaic of vegetables such as fine green beans, baton carrot and julienne of red pepper. Arrange two slightly sloping pedestals in a V shape in the centre of the tray and place the two spiny lobster tails on top so that they meet at the point of the V. Stand one of the shells on top at this point. Decorate with the medallions of spiny lobster flesh, fixing them in place with a little softened butter. Surround with the mussels, scampi and prawns arranged alternately to form circles.