A recipe for a delicious starter from Richard Corrigan's guest.
Ingredients
- 2-3 lively lobsters (not too big)
- salt
For the Cocktail Sauce:
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 tsp mustard
- 250 ml vegetable oil
- 1 lemon
- extra virgin olive oil
- salt and pepper
- angostura bitters
- tabasco
- tomato ketchup
- cayenne pepper
For the Salad:
- 2 melons (balled)
- 4 tomatoes (peeled and de-seeded, cut into strips)
- 1 cucumber (peeled and de-seeded, cut into chunks)
- 4 scallions (chopped)
- 3-4 baby gem lettuces (quartered and chopped)
- 4 squares of greaseproof paper
- 4 squares of tinfoil
Method
Lobster:
- Fill a large pot of water and add salt. The water should taste as salty as the sea. Put it on the heat and bring it to a lively rolling boil.
- Drop the lobster in to the pot and cook for about 10 minutes. The lobster will turn a lovely red colour. You can cook more than one lobster at a time, depending on the size of your pot.
- Have a bowl of iced salted water on the side once the lobster is lifted out of the pot. Blanch it in the iced water, to cool.
Cocktail Sauce:
- Firstly make the mayonnaise. Put the two egg yolks and mustard into a bowl and whisk together, gently pour in the vegetable oil, whisking continually.
- The idea is to slowly pour the oil, while whisking continually. The mixture will emulsify, thicken and be yellow in colour. Taste to check seasoning, adjust to flavour
- Finish by whisking a little extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice into the mixture. Check seasoning and adjust: it may need a little more salt or some lemon juice.
- To the finished mayonnaise add a tablespoon of tomato ketchup, a dash of Tabasco, a teaspoon of Angostura bitters and ¼ teaspoon of cayenne pepper. Mix all together.
- Taste, adjusting ingredients to suite your own taste. When adjusting ingredients, only add a little of anything, remember you can always add more. Put in the fridge while you prepare your salad.
Salad:
- Lift the cooled lobster from the cold water. Take all the meat from the shell and put all the meat into a large bowl.
- Cut the melons across the equator and remove all the flesh with a melon baller and put into the bowl. Hold the empty skins to one side.
- Add the salad ingredients into the bowl and spoon over some cocktail sauce and mix through.
- The aim here is to have an evenly dressed salad. You may not need to use all the cocktail sauce to achieve this.
- Spoon the dressed lobster salad back into the melon skins.
- Lay a piece of tinfoil on the work top, put a piece of greaseproof on it and place the filled melon skin in the centre.
- Wrap the tinfoil and greaseproof around the melon and put in the fridge until you're ready to go on your picnic.
Tip:
Cut a little bit off the bottom of the melon, so that there is a flat surface and the melon skin can stand up right.