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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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:

  1. Lift the cooled lobster from the cold water. Take all the meat from the shell and put all the meat into a large bowl.
  2. 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.
  3. Add the salad ingredients into the bowl and spoon over some cocktail sauce and mix through. 
  4. The aim here is to have an evenly dressed salad. You may not need to use all the cocktail sauce to achieve this.
  5. Spoon the dressed lobster salad back into the melon skins.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.