Key West Kitchen

Lobster Redux – This Time All Dressed Up For the Evening!

BY KERRY SHELBY

I know that I just recently wrote about Florida lobster, but with the season in full swing and lobster showing up on plates all over town, I’m still thinking about (and salivating over) our tasty local crustacean.

Years ago, I came across a tall, slender cookbook called “Gulf Coast Cooking: Seafood from the Florida Keys to the Yucatan Peninsula” by Virginia Elverson. As promised in the title, Elverson takes you on a virtual road trip around the Gulf of Mexico, from Key West up the West Coast of Florida, then on to coastal Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and over to the Yucatan. The book is packed with photos of weathered fishermen and their catches, fish shacks and local cooks enjoying the bounty of the Gulf.

The recipes are little hidden nuggets that she mined along the way, prying recipes out of coastal dives as well as some of the finest restaurants. Somewhere along the Florida coast, she ran across a recipe for baked lobster with a rich cream and Chardonnay sauce chock full of scallops and shrimp. It has become my favorite treatment for our Florida lobster. I’ve tweaked the recipe a bit over the years, using homemade shrimp stock instead of bottled clam juice and omitting the shrimp in the sauce altogether to really let the scallops shine. Here’s your chance to dress up that lobster tail for an elegant evening!

Florida Lobster with Chardonnay Sauce

In a small saucepan, heat ¾ cup shrimp stock (see note below) and reduce by half. Add 1½ cups cream and ½ cup good Chardonnay and again reduce by half. Add about 6 plump diver scallops, cut in halves, and cook 2-3 minutes until the scallops are just cooked through. Keep warm.

Using poultry shears, split the top shells of 4 lobster tails down the middle. Reach in and grab the tail meat and remove from the shells.   Put the empty shells in a buttered casserole and place the meat directly on top. Pour about ¾ cup melted butter over the tails and bake at 425 degrees for 8-10 minutes until the meat just firms up and loses its transparency.

Cut a small red bell pepper, a peeled carrot and a zucchini squash into julienne strips. Either steam in a double boiler or blanch the vegetables until barely tender. Scatter the vegetables on 4 plates, top with a lobster, shell and all, and ladle the sauce on top.

Note: To make a shrimp stock, peel about 1/3 pound of Key West pink shrimp, toss the shells in a saucepan and save the shrimp meat for another use. Add 2 cups cold water, some chopped carrot and celery along with a pinch of salt. Simmer over medium heat about 20 minutes, adding water if necessary, so that you end up with about ¾ cup of stock.

Serves 4

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