Lobsters, Take 2

This is how it started...

...and this is how it ended...
I was going to make the bisque again. It's an amazing recipe, but it just seemed so unfair that you cook a bunch of lobsters, which takes a grand total of 10 minutes, but you don't get to eat for another 2 hours. Yes, it's worth it for this bisque, but just not this time. This time I wanted lobster fastfood. So my mom, my aunt and I walked up to the grocery store, bought our lobsters and I offered to carry them back down the hill to the house. I didn't even hold them at arms length from my body out of fear. I courageously threw them into my shoulder bag and let them bounce a tiny, tiny bit against my hip all the way home. I was gentle, but I was showing those lobsters who was boss.

My home in Newfoundland actually has a lobster pot so we could boil three small lobsters in one go. The suffering would be quick. Our suffering, I mean. The lobsters' suffering would take the same amount of time no matter when they got added to the pot. Still, they had to be added one at a time...

When we got home with the 3 poor fellows, I put the bag straight into the fridge while I boiled a big pot of salted water. I had about 4 cups of water, a cup and a half of sake (leftover, so I threw it in), 1/4 cup of salt (just throw in a lot) and a few slices of ginger (because all of Asia agrees that ginger goes well with sake in sauces). When I got the lobsters out of the fridge once the water had come to a boil, they weren't moving. This had happened last time too...so I was pretty sure they weren't dead...just lethargic. Elastic bands firmly in place, I picked up the first lobster by his bottom and put him into the pot (pictured above).

Lobster number 2

Then in went lobster number 2, and finally lobster number 3.

Lobster number 3

Lobster number 3 looks a little more excited to finally be warm. No one cried (me, or the lobsters, or my mother, or my aunt) and when the water came back to a boil, I set the timer for 10 minutes and cooked the three crustaceans in the covered pot.

In the meantime...

I got three little bowls of butter melted ready. That's all you need for this. I also had some chile-garlic paste leftover (to continue the Asian theme from the sake and ginger) and so I put that out too. Really, the lobster meat didn't need much of anything, and the meal of sweet potatoes, lobster and salad was absolutely incredible. The great thing is it takes a bunch of time to shuck the lobster, so you work for your dinner, instead of gobbling it up quickly and still feeling hungry and wishing you'd killed an extra lobster or two. Besides, all that butter needs time to soak into your body. It is my favourite kind of body butter. Take that, Body Shop.

Hani Chile-Garlic Paste: "Beyond the Great Wall"

The first thing I made when I got back to Newfoundland were my staples.

Guizhou Chile Paste and Hani Chile-Garlic Paste

Needless to say I was coughing up a lung for the rest of the afternoon. I used a 250mL container of dried Birds Eye chiles. That's enough to cause anyone who even walked into the room to be stricken by the inability to breathe properly. These things are pungent.

Ingredients:
1 head of garlic
2 shallots
1/4 tsp salt
4 dried bird chiles (I assume this means birds eye chiles. The recipe also says you can use serrano)

The nice thing about this recipe is that you don't need to peel the garlic or shallots, just separate the cloves and place them with the un-skinned shallots on an oiled baking sheet in a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven for 20 minutes. It's just a different way of roasting them. You could also do the more standard method of chopping off the top quarter of the head of garlic and wrapping it in aluminum foil, but since you're only gong to half-roast it, you'll have to separate the cloves later anyway to get the insides out. Also, why waste aluminum? The cloves of garlic and the shallots are actually supposed to be stuck directly in the coals of a fire or gas flame, but, alas...these things don't exist in my kitchen. No smokey flavour for me.

After 20 minutes and another 10 let them cool, just peel off the skins of the garlic and shallots. Chop the shallots a little before tossing them in a mortar and pestle or a food processor (or blender) with the salt. I accidentally diced the shallots in advance, so I actually put them in aluminum foil to roast, instead of leaving them in their skin on the baking sheet. It worked fine...I think. I had nothing to compare it to. Next time I will read properly before dicing. It's at the point where I just assume shallots are meant to be diced. I need to learn to be more lazy.

I also didn't have fresh chiles, which the recipe called for, but I was soaking a bunch of dried birds eye chiles for the Guizhou chile paste, so I sneaked four of the soaked ones, chopped them roughly, and threw them into the food processor too. It really would be better to do this with a mortar and pestle, both to get a less-processed consistency and for authenticity, but life is short and my eyes were already stinging. Breathing is also important, I hear.

Compared to the Guizhou chile paste, this is a very mild condiment. The garlic flavour is sweetened and tempered by the roasting, and the amount of chiles was just right. I added this paste to mashed potatoes (in place of normal roasted garlic) that I had made to accompany spice-rubbed trout, but I forgot that I'd put it in until I had a sip of a Merlot and my mouth got set on fire. How was the wine so spicy???? It took me a good few minutes to remember the chiles in the potato. I couldn't taste them at all until they were set off by the wine. Amazing...