Lobster. What an amazing shellfish. I have been thinking of cooking lobster at home since our Canadian adventure last autumn, where we ate it in Toronto at a dinner hosted by St Lawrence Cousin, at a Chinese restaurant to celebrate Toronto Uncle’s 95th birthday and in Montreal at Liverpool House (sister of Joe Beef, with that iconic lobster spaghetti dish that is so good the crustacean is mentioned twice in the title).
I probably remember every time I have eaten lobster, because no other shellfish (for me anyway) has the potential to delight and disappoint in equal measure. Fortunately I have had more lovely lobster meals (including Boston 2017, Scotland, Isles of Scilly, with noodles in Mandarin Kitchen in Queensway) than dud ones (lobster roll, at an American restaurant also in Queensway).
I am not squeamish by nature and in the spirit of wanting to do justice to this noble creature, I thought I would start by reading all I can about lobsters. Buying a cooked lobster was not the way I wanted to start. See the books I read at the end of this post.
In the end I decided to take the plunge (before subjecting the lobster to the same, in hot water) and enrolled on a day course at Le Cordon Bleu on how to prepare fish and shellfish. I will write about LCB in the next post, and in this post I will show you the fish and shellfish we prepared during the day course.
We started with hand-dived scallops
Squid, which I had experience of cleaning when helping my mother in our KL kitchen. In fact my method of turning the squid inside out for cleaning was better than the tutor’s, as he used a finger to push the narrow tapered end to turn it inside out. The student next to me suggested the handle of a spoon. I said my mother taught me to use the thick end of a bamboo chopstick. Hands down, chopstick method is best.
After cleaning and prepping, we cooked the scallop and squid dish to place on top of a salad
Native lobster, before and after
Mackerel which we had to fillet and pinbone
The fillets were torched then doused in a vinegar dressing and kept overnight before eating
Lemon Sole, to learn how to fillet a flat fish
This was the finished lemon sole dish with brown shrimp, parsley and loads of butter, cooked by our tutor. I took mine home and ate it for dinner, but being so tired and hungry I omitted to take a photo
It was an intensive seven hour day and by the time it got to late evening, I was quite tired but very happy. My main purpose in taking the course was to gain confidence in how to tackle a live lobster, and that I achieved. I am looking forward to my first at-home lobster meal, perhaps for the mid-autumn (moon cake) festival at the end of September. It will be a fitting way to show my skills and also to show the newly renovated house, with replaced wooden flooring, carpeting and a revarnished staircase. I think, though, the lobster might be more interesting than the flooring and the staircase.
My current books on fish and shellfish preparation, having retired previous ones including Floyd on Fish and many from Rick Stein. I guess you can watch online videos, but nothing beats a hands-on class
