Digging lobster meat out of its shell isn’t an easy feat if you do not know the right way of doing it. Please watch a video before you attempt to do it at home yourself. You can watch this video here and decide if you would like to continue with this recipe.
Lobster thermidor is an expensive French dish served only in select restaurants. It’s a dish that involves many mini steps, from cooking a lobster (just right) to pan-frying it with the right sauce, to grilling it till perfection with cheese. The final plate sees lobster chunks served in its own shell with a creamy cheesy sauce. Fine dining. Delicate tastes.
My first taste of lobster thermidor was on SIA while I was on a work trip back from London to Singapore. That was back in early 2020, almost two years ago, but it seemed like distant memory to me now.
The lobster thermidor that I had was nice and creamy and yummy, especially since it was prepared nicely for my inflight dinner. I recall having a limoncello for my dessert that night too – a refreshing lemon gelato filled with a limoncello liquer which made the dessert super nice. Perhaps food tasted particularly nice if eaten on the plane, at a height that’s high up in the air. Perhaps tastebuds tend to be more sensitive to intricate flavours when it’s lost all forces of gravity coming from earth. Or perhaps, just perhaps, it’s to do with food taken in the Business Class that makes it particularly memorable, even if it’s not the nicest. Whatever it was, I will never forget the taste of that thermidor, which has been residing at the back of my mind since that night. I told myself I have got to try making this dish at home so that I can bring back those fond memories again.
Fortunately, hub was at home to help out with the preps for this dish, so it kind of cut down the total time taken to whip it up but even then, it took us more than two hours in the kitchen before we could sit finally sit down at the dining table. For three medium-sized lobsters, that’s really a lot of time to take for just one meal if you ask me.
The dish did taste great, and the boy got to have his very own serving of lobster at a very young age of six. Lucky him. Though honestly, with a good serving of cheese to go with it, one can’t go wrong with this dish at all, but the amount of time and effort to prepare this dish would make me think twice about preparing this dish again.
Perhaps a flight on Business Class would be a better option to enjoy this dish next time. Fingers crossed.
Ingredients:
- Lobster: 3, medium-sized (500g each)
- Butter: 1 tbsp
- Shallot: 1, finely chopped
- White wine: 150ml
- Lobster stock: 150ml
- Heavy cream: 100ml
- Mustard: 1 tsp
- Lemon: 1, halved and sliced
- Salt: 1.5 tsp
- Ground blackpepper: a pinch
- Gruyere cheese: 100g, grated
- Coriander: 1 stalk, finely chopped
Method:
- Boil lobsters in water for 5-10 min.
- Leave to cool, then slice each into half. Set stock aside.
- Spoon and dispose of head and innerds. Clean off the rest and remove meat from body, legs, joints and pinces. Cut into smaller cubes and set aside.
- Clean off the outer shells and place halves onto baking tray, open side up. Set aside and preheat grill.
- Heat butter in saucepan. Add shallots and saute till fragrant.
- Deglaze with white wine. Add in lobster stock, and cook till reduced to 1/3 portion.
- Add heavy cream, mustard, juice of half a lemon, salt and pepper. Reduce again to 1/3 portion.
- Mix in half portion of gruyere cheese. Then stir in lobster meat to coat.
- Scoop filling into lobster shells. Top with remaining cheese.
- Grill 2-3min till lightly browned.
- Garnish with coriander and lemon slices to serve.
Serving:
3 persons
