Almost Wordless Wednesday: Lobster Risotto

Ok, we weren't able to finish off all that lobster the other day, so we made lobster risotto the next. Guess we just can't get enough!

For the Love of Lobster

We have returned from our annual family vacation at Goose Rocks Beach in Maine, and we sure had a great week. Since the weather wasn't perfect, we had plenty of time to spend with Amy's family (parents, sister, brother-in-law, and niece) chatting, playing games, and (of course) eating. As it is the annual vacation (6 years running), we quickly and pretty seamlessly turn to a routine. There's an early-morning walk to the nearby store for a muffin or donut, known as pre-breakfast. Then once Auntie Amy is up, she makes the real breakfast, usually eggs, bacon, sausage, and English muffins, or perhaps a frittata made of leftovers from the night before. Eschewing big lunches for quick right-off-the-beach snacks, we leave room for big family dinners, and these are the most fun.

The Ocean Roll

Menu at The Ocean Roll

While we often cook these dinners, for example grilling steaks one night and pizzas another, it is Maine and that means seafood. So we'd love to tell you about our new discovery - The Ocean Roll. An antique truck located next to an antiques shop on Route 1 (Portland Road), Kennebunk, this truck is Maine on wheels. To start with, the food truck is part of Maine's history, as it was originally built as the canteen for the Maine Civil Defense. 

Fried Clam Box and Hot Lobster Roll at The Ocean Roll

The two of us stopped in for lunch on Saturday and then the whole family got take-out for dinner Sunday night. Yeah, it was that good. Lobster salad rolls, or the Amy-preferred hot buttered lobster rolls were packed with fresh lobster meat. Whole belly clams were lightly battered and fried to a perfect golden brown. The cole slaw was creamy, crunchy and well-seasoned. The service, friendly and welcoming. And the truck is just....cool. Compared to the super-touristy and rather expensive Clam Shack in downtown Kennebunkport, we think The Ocean Roll is twice as good at half the price. We highly recommend it!

Annual Family Vacation Lobster Feast

So yeah, we had seafood two days in a row. That didn't mean that by Wednesday, we weren't ready for more. Wednesday was our traditional lobster-n-steamers night, when we order steamed lobsters and clams from Wolff Farm & Lobster. They steam them for us, and we eat them up - a pound of steamers and two lobsters each. It's a feast fit for a family vacation, and we look forward to the "lobster-eating orgy" every time.

Huge lobster in Sanders Lobster Co. tank (compare to dime)

Steamers

Now you would think after all this we would have had our fill of the crustacean for which Maine is famous, but wait! There's more! On our drive home, as we always do, the two of us stopped by Sanders Lobster Company in the Strawbery Banke section of Portsmouth, NH to buy more. Yeah, we did. We pass the fish market and go directly to the docks where we can find culls (small lobsters, often - but not always! - missing one claw) for $3.99 a pound. This year we had some restraint. We bought 6 culls and 3 pounds of steamers that they packed in some ice for us and we cooked up and gobbled down when we got home. After all, a good vacation doesn't end when you leave. So here's to lobster, Maine, New England, summer, vacation, and most of all, family. We love you all!!!

More lobster at home

Valentine's Surf and Turf

We are products of that era of cooking in which surf-and-turf was the end-all, the epitome of gourmet cuisine, the go-to meal for all special occasions (except those at which Chateaubriand was served, of course). Perhaps that is why we chose it for this year's Valentine's dinner, because something in each of our brains is wired to think "Surf-n-turf equals romance." Whatever the reason, we didn't want to come up with anything extraordinary, nothing molecular or involving strange or hard-to-find ingredients. Yes, we went retro with that oh-so-classic combination: surf and turf.

Melted butter, garlic, shallots, cayenne, salt and pepper...

...whisked together

The "surf" was two 1 1/4-pound lobsters, flash boiled, picked, then returned to the (cleaned out) shell to be baked in a garlic, shallot, pepper and cayenne compound butter. These were moist, succulent and completely drenched in spicy, garlicky buttery yumminess.

Spread butter into the clean lobster shells...

 

...and fill with bite-sized pieces of par-cooked lobster meat.

The "turf" was two 6-ounce filet mignon steaks, generously seasoned with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, seared to perfection, tender, juicy and delicious in their simplicity.

Nicely seasoned and seared filet mignon

The side dish was red potatoes tossed in olive oil and herbs de Provence, then baked at 425 for a half hour.

The dessert? Well, you'll just have to check out our next post to find out about that.

The outcome? Classically romantic.

Hope your Valentine's Day dinner was just as wonderful, shared with the one you love the most.

Valentine's Day Surf and Turf

The Side:

Ingredients:

4 red potatoes, cut into a large dice

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons herbs de Provence

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Toss all ingredients together in a large bowl. Spread onto a baking sheet and place in oven to roast.

The Surf:

Ingredients:

2 1 1/4-pound lobsters

3 tablespoons kosher salt

6 quarts water

1 stick unsalted butter

1 tablespoon chopped shallots

4 small cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 cup plain breadcrumbs, divided

In a large pot, bring salted water to a rolling boil. Put the lobsters in head-first, cover and cook for 3 minutes only. Remove the lobsters from the water and let cool enough to handle. Pick the lobster meat and cut it into bite-sized chunks; set aside. Clean out the empty body and tail shells and place in a baking dish. Put the butter in a glass bowl and microwave for 30 seconds, until mostly melted. Add the shallots, garlic, cayenne, salt, and pepper, and whisk to incorporate. Spread 1/4 of the butter into the bottom of each lobster shell. Fill each tail shell with 1/2 of the lobster meat and the head of each lobster with 1/2 of the breadcrumbs. Top the lobster meat and breadcrumbs with the remaining butter. Set aside until the "turf" is ready to go into the oven.

The Turf:

Ingredients:

2 6-ounce filet mignon steaks

kosher salt

freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon olive oil

Generously season each steak with salt and pepper. Heat a large cast iron pan over high heat until very hot. Add the olive oil and quickly swirl it around the pan. Place the steaks in the pan and sear over high heat until nicely browned, about 4 minutes each side.

 

The Finish:

Place the baking dish holding the lobster and the cast iron pan holding the steaks into the oven (in which the potatoes are still roasting - check them for doneness). Bake for 6-8 minutes, depending on the thickness of the steaks and how you like them cooked. Plate and serve with a nice bottle of wine, candlelight and lots of love and romance.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Mini Upside-Down Lobster Pot Pies, or Celebrating New England for the Super Bowl

We'll be the first ones to admit that we aren't sports fans. ESPN has been deleted from our TV channel grid. We don't own any football jerseys or foam fingers or can koozies. Sports are simply not on our radar. But now and then, we are invited to a sports-viewing soiree. It is then that we take it upon ourselves to choose a side (usually based on any current or past residence, sometimes based on color of outfits uniforms), and make a dish that celebrates that particular city/state/region (see our recent LSU vs. Alabama post).

Which brings us to Super Bowl Sunday. When we got a text from our friends D and J inviting us to their Super Bowl party, we knew we'd have to represent New England, both of us being born and raised here. And what food is more quintessentially New England than Maine lobster? Unfortunately, there is no money tree in our yard, and it's tough feeding lobster to a crowd (even a small one), when live lobsters cost about $9.99 a pound, and much of that is the (heavy) shell. A little brainstorming was all it took to come up with a solution that pleased all involved: 12 mini upside-down lobster pot pies.


What makes them upside-down? They are served in a puff-pastry cup instead of a puff-pastry or pie-crust top. Fun, right?

Mise en place

Shallots softened in butter

Add a little brandy

And a little flour to make a roux

Saturday afternoon, we purchased four small lobsters, steamed them and picked them. We netted one pound of lobster in the end (accounting for the occasional picking while picking). As the lobster meat chilled, we made our own lobster stock by placing all the shells in a large stock pot, covering them with water and boiling them for an hour, then straining the stock and reducing it until we had about two cups of lobstery liquid. An hour before the party, we set out to make our pot pie mixture that we based on Emeril's recipe, slightly adapting it to suit our tastes. For the shells, we cut puff pastry sheets into squares and placed two squares in a regular muffin tin to form a cup. Pricking the bottom all over with a fork reduced the "puffage" and voila - puff pastry cups to fill with lobster pot pie mixture!

Pot pie mixture with milk, cream, herbs and spices

Forming puff pastry cups

Golden-brown, puffed-up pastry cups

Mini Upside-Down Lobster Pot Pies

Makes 12

Ingredients:

4 1 to 1 1/4-lb. live lobsters

water for stock

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/3 cup minced shallots

1/4 cup brandy

2 tablespoons flour

1 cup milk

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup frozen green peas

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 teaspoons dried thyme

2 tablespoons chopped chives

1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh tarragon

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

4 sheets frozen puff pastry, thawed

flour for work surface

cooking spray

To cook the lobster and make the stock:

Fill a large pot about two inches high with water. Add a small handful of kosher or sea salt. Bring the water to a rolling boil, and put in lobsters, one at a time. Cover tightly, return to a boil and steam for 8 minutes per pound, adding 3 minutes per pound for each additional pound thereafter (so about 17-18 minutes for four 1-lb. lobsters). Your lobsters are done when the outer shell is bright red and when the meat is white, not opaque; remove them carefully and discard the steaming water. Allow the lobsters to cool then remove the meat from the shell (pick them). Cut lobster meat into bite-sized pieces, set aside to cool completely, then refrigerate. Place all the shells back in the large pot. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Simmer for 20 minutes, then strain out and discard the shells. Return the stock to the heat and simmer for 2 hours until reduced to about 1 1/2 - 2 cups.

To make the pot pie mixture:

In a heavy saucepan, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the shallots and cook until softened, about 1 minute. Add the brandy and cook until almost completely evaporated. Sprinkle the flour over the top of the shallots, stir to combine well, and cook for 2 minutes. Add 1 1/2 cups lobster stock and the milk, and whisk until smooth. Continue to cook until thickened. Add the heavy cream, green peas, salt, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, and thyme, and cook for 15 minutes, until sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon and the flavors have come together. Set aside until cooled. Add the lobster meat, chives and tarragon, and salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

To make the puff pastry cups and assemble the pot pies:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put pot pie mixture in a saucepan over medium heat to warm through. On a floured work surface, lay out the puff pastry sheets and cut them into 3-inch squares. Spray a regular size muffin tin with cooking spray. Lay two puff pastry squares overlapping in 6 of the muffin cups (alternating every other), allowing room for the pastry to puff around the sides of the cup. Prick the bottom of each muffin cup all over with a fork, then bake at 400 for 18 minutes, until puffy and golden brown. Remove puff pastry cups to individual bowls and fill with warm pot pie mixture. Repeat the entire process to make a total of 12.

Wordless Wednesday: Maine Lobster - From Boiled to Bisque