Lobster Killer Qu'est-ce Que C'est

Several weeks ago, I got the chance to perform a scene from the movie Julie & Julia in my very own kitchen. You know the scene where Julie is trying to recreate Julia's lobster dish and she has to cook a live lobster? And then her boyfriend starts singing "lobster killer qu'est-ce que c'est" to the tune of Psycho Killer by Talking Heads? Well that was me, just in slightly different circumstances.

I am currently a culinary student at my university, and this last semester I took a class called Basic Culinary Skills. It was basically just a hands on cooking class that met once a week for 3 hours. One of the greatest classes I have ever taken (even though I accidentally missed the final, but that's another story). One day I received an email from one of the culinary professors, Chef Thor. He was putting together a project for all of the Basic Culinary classes. A lobster project. Chef Thor's email was a little confusing because he is from Iceland and English is not his first language. However, we were all able to decipher that we had to stop by the kitchens that day to receive coolers full of food for our project. We had to take all of the food, including two live lobsters, and make into one cohesive dinner.

The food we were given.

We were given 2 onions, 2 tomatoes, 2 lemons, an english cucumber, a pound of butter, an entire bottle of olive oil, a whole jar of capers, a bundle of parsley, a head of lettuce, a rather large baguette, a tub of rice, two lobsters (alive and kicking), and two lobster bibs (which I forgot to use). I was quite perplexed with the idea of fitting all of these things together into a meal that actually made sense. The obvious answer was to put everything into one big lobster gumbo. But I am not a huge fan of gumbo. I decided to do three courses, using one of the ingredients throughout each to tie them together. I chose the lemon for that.

First was the appetizer. I decided to make bruschetta. I started it by cutting the bread into small slices, brushing them with olive oil, and putting them in the toaster over to brown. For things like that I prefer to use the toaster oven because my oven takes half a century to preheat. Anyway, next I diced one onion and cooked it in butter (because butter makes everything better). I removed the seeds from the tomatoes and diced them, and I added them to the onions with plenty of salt and pepper until it all became soft. I also minced up some capers and added them to the still warm onion/tomato mixture. Each bread slice was topped with the veggies, and on top of that I added some parsley, lemon zest, and some cracked sea salt. I am not a huge fan of tomatoes, so I only had half of one. My boyfriend, Roger ate the other seven and a half. I guess he liked them!

Tomato & Onion Bruschetta.

The next two parts of the meal had the lobster in them. Cooking the lobsters was quite an event. I did some investigating on Pinterest beforehand so that I had some sort of an idea as to how to cook lobster. As a broke college student, it's not something I cook very often. In fact, this was my first time doing it. So I read that you had to put them into boiling water head first and let them cook for about 15 minutes. Simple enough. Except that picking them up turned out to be insanely freaky. Every single time I would grab one its antenna would tickle my arm. I dropped one of them a couple of times...poor little guy. I did finally get the courage up to put one into the water. I held him tightly with a dish towel and dunked him into the boiling pot of water. Immediately he stretched out his claws so that I his tail didn't fit into the pot. The little dude started screaming (yes, screaming) and flapped his tail viciously, spraying boiling water all over the kitchen. I screamed along with him. Eventually, I did manage to get him fully in the pot with the lid on. When Roger got to my apartment he found me distraught and crying. I told him what happened, and he burst into laughter. Looking back, I really don't blame him. It was really funny. But he did put the second one in the water for me. He's a good guy.

My boyfriend being goofy.

The rice cooking.

I used the claw meat from the lobsters for salads. They were very simple salads. They were made up of the lettuce, cucumber, lobster claw meat, lemon juice, olive oil, and then just some salt and pepper. The lobster was way over cooked, but it still tasted good. For the main course I made a rice dish that was a mix between rice pilaf and risotto. Then the rice got topped with the meat from the lobster tail and also some lemon juice. For the rice, I started by dicing up the other onion really small and cooking it in butter until it was just clear. I then cooked the rice in the butter and onions, but I didn't let it brown. I took some of the broth from where I had cooked the lobsters and added saffron to it to let it steep. Then I added chicken broth base to some more of the lobster water, and I added that to the rice and onions one scoop at a time until it got absorbed. I also added one bay leaf. I let the rice, saffron, and broth cook for awhile, and at the end I stirred in some cheese. Somewhere alone the line I also added in a splash of vodka I was trying to go through, but that wasn't necessary. Again, the lobster was over cooked, but overall it was really delicious.

 Overall, it was a very interesting experience. Something I would definitely like to take another go at. In the end, despite the over cooked lobster and the massive mess I made in the kitchen, I made an A on the project.

-Emily