Special Occasion Meals

Live from Maine

There are cooking blogs out in the blogosphere that have mostly high fat, high calorie recipes on their blogs, but not me. However, I do realize the value of a special occasion meal, and since last night was our wedding anniversary we did it up! Now over the years we would sometimes go out for our anniversary to a special restaurant. Most of the time we prefer to stay at home and have some sort of lobster dish. Last night I bought 3 live lobsters and brought them home for a feast. I decided I’d do lobster two ways. First was the old standby of Lobster Newburg, a wonderful preparation with lobster sauteed in clarified butter with minced onions and mushrooms. It is thickened with roux, then the milk and sherry are added. A touch of ground white pepper, and nutmeg finish it off perfectly. To this dish I then added butter poached lobster as a garnish. This is a way of cooking lobster I learned from the book “Soul of a Chef” where chef Thomas Keller took up about a third of the book, and was highlighted in his French Laundry restaurant. Wow, it was good! To round out the plate I steamed whole brussel sprouts, and made a nice rice pilaf with a touch of saffron for flavor and color. I also served a small dish of corn relish for a mini salad course. The Roederer Estate sparkling wine was a perfect match, for both the main dish and the store bought fruit tart and cherry tart. All in all I was very pleased and will remember the evening fondly. And that my friends is what special occasion meals are all about! Great food is part of our lives, and one of the things we remember from special occasions. So by all means enjoy the good stuff, just don’t eat like this every night if you want to be healthy and active.

Fast and Furious Newburg Sauce for Two

1/3 cup white mushrooms diced small

1/4 cup yellow onion diced small

1 tablespoon clarified butter

1 cup whole milk

dash of ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper

In a 1 quart pot saute the onions in the clarified butter on medium low for 3 minutes then add the mushrooms stirring often,(about every 30 seconds). Continue cooking for 8-10 minutes on medium low to cook out most of the moisture in the mushrooms stirring often. Add the flour to make a roux and cook 4 more minutes on low. Whisk in milk and turn heat up to medium stirring slowly but constantly until the sauce just starts to bubble and simmer. Add pepper, nutmeg and salt to taste. Remove from heat and cover until needed. Enough sauce for two servings, maybe even three.

Lobster Two ways,
butter poached and Newburg

For the lobsters.

I use an 8 quart pot to precook my lobsters in, but as long as you can get a lid on you can use a smaller pot for this step. Fill the pot about one third full of water, cover, and bring to a boil. When the water comes to a boil drop the lobster in head first, belly up. Cook for 3-4 minutes on high heat and remove to cold water to stop the cooking process. Repeat for each lobster. After lobsters cool , the meat should come out easily when the shells are cracked open. Cut lobster tail into bite sized pieces, and leave claws whole. Dry the lobster pieces with paper towels and saute in clarified butter in a medium sized saute pan on medium heat for 5-8 minutes. Drain lobster butter off into a bowl to save for bread dipping(yum!). Add Newburg Sauce to the pan and heat just until it starts to simmer. Pour into preheated baking dishes if you have them and serve with sliced French bagguette slices.

Serves two but is easily doubled.

Note:

* I used three 1 1/2 pound lobsters for this dish, and had a bit of lobster meat leftover for lobster hash the following morning.

Lobster Hash