Lobster Mac and Cheese

It was a Wednesday evening following an 8-hour day of back-to-back meetings and an invigorating afternoon run in ideal VT autumn weather. I was feeling inspired and wandering the aisles of our Food Coop. I passed the meat counter, not feeling a spark of motivation by the various cuts of beef, pork, veal, lamb, and chicken that went by. Next came the fish and seafood and THE LOBSTER TANK. Bingo!
A couple of weeks back, Peter - yes my fiancee - and I spent a weekend up in Stowe, VT for the British Invasion car show that occurs annually at this time of year.

We stayed at the Stowe Mountain Lodge, which was quite nice indeed except for one minor flaw: their "fine-dining" restaurant, Solstice. I'll leave my critique of the establishment at this: if it has one redeeming quality, it is their lobster mac and cheese, which is cheesy, buttery, creamy, and full of hearty chunks of lobster meat, and accented with just the right touch of truffle.
OK, so jump ahead to this past Wednesday evening and my moment of inspiration. Seeing the lobster reminded me that we had had an intention of preparing the dish at some point during the week, after a failed attempt on Monday to purchase lobster. Thus, I stepped up to the counter and ordered their liveliest looking lobster, and here comes my moment of culinary shame. The kind fish monger inquired if I wished to have the creature cooked, and after stumbling over my words - the option came so out of the blue for me - I accepted his offer! Not that cooking lobster is really that hard, but how could I resist the no-additional-cost out of not having to go through the murderous task ahead of plunging the poor, delicious, little guy headfirst into a steaming pot?
Fifteen minutes later, I left the Coop with a cooked lobster and $40 worth of cheese and crackers. Arriving home, I was ready for a quick shower, and then started right in on dismembering my shelled friend, snacking of course on the little legs along the way. Forty-five minutes, 8 legs, and a glass of wine later I had a generous bowl-full of lobster meat, and was ready to get my pasta water and my cheese/Mornay sauce going.

For a Mornay sauce, and a Bechamel for that matter, I tend to apply a 1:1:1:1:1... rule. I get the Bechamel going by melting 1 tablespoon of butter, and then I add 1 tablespoon of flour and cook for 1 minute. Then I add 1 cup of milk gradually, stirring as I do so to prevent lumps from forming. I heat this until it just starts to bubble (probably longer than 1 minute) and then for the Mornay, I go ahead and add 1 cup of grated cheese.

In the case of my lobster mac and cheese, I actually doubled (this is an approximation as I naturally forgot to do any measuring whatsoever) these aforementioned quantities, and added a little wine in place of some of the milk. I then seasoned the sauce to my liking and added a touch of truffle oil (for lack of real truffle). I cooked about half a 1-pound box of cavatappi until al dente, drained it, and added the lot along with my chopped lobster meat to the Mornay. After stirring to make sure everything was evenly coated, I poured pot of cheesy, lobster-y, truffle-y goodness into a 10"x10" ceramic baker, topped it with a sprinkling of panko breadcrumbs, and popped it into a hot, 450-degree F oven for I'd say 10 minutes.

The dish came out piping hot, and after a good 2-hours of prepping (don't worry Peter all-the-while cheered me on and kept me motivated with E-Bay's selection of MGs for sale) I was ready to devour my good share of it. So alas there is no real recipe to accompany this post, but I assure you if you follow the general guidelines and use your own good judgement and taste, you too can have lobster mac and cheese in less than 2 hours and $60. 

Enjoy!

Oh yeah, I put our piping hot meal atop a bed of fresh Killdeer Farm spinach with just the slightly spritz of balsamic vinegar. Everyone needs a little bit of green in every meal:)

Oxtail Paprika

It has been a week of unseasonable and "record-setting" March weather in Vermont, but the grey and the general rainy dreariness has reared its ugly head upon us this weekend. Without the promise of much outdoor recreational activity, we have opted to play the game where you say you're going to be productive and get a lot of things done indoors, but really your not accomplishing much of anything.
It wasn't until about 6:02 that we finally became a little more motivated and P is managed some cleaning, while I got an oxtail paprika on the stove!
I acquired the oxtail from the White River Junction Food Coop, which I had the good fortune of visiting when it was in the process of cleaning out freezers in order to prepare for the installation of brand new energy efficient ones. Everything in the freezers was 25% off, so I did a mandatory sweep of the cases, and stopped in front of the dwindled selection of Hardwick Beef. It was down to 4 pieces of beef shanks - with marrow bones - and two oxtails. Being partial to these cuts of beef, at first I grabbed all six pieces thinking we'd surely make use of them in quick fashion. However I then remembered the 1/2 a cow-worth of beef already sitting in the freezer, and so I put back two of the shanks and one tail and proceeded on my way before I could change my mind again.
Today's paprika is inspired by the fond food memories I have of Austria where we were treated to a homemade stock pot full of goulash.

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/4 lb oxtail (Hardwick Beef), cut into pieces
1 medium onion, diced
2 medium carrots, sliced
2 celery sticks, sliced
1 tablespoon tomato paste
10 sprigs thyme
3/4 bottle dry red wine
1 teaspoon paprika

Heat the oil in a heavy dutch oven or other such pot. Add the oxtail pieces and sear on all sides. Remove the pieces of meat from the pot and add the vegetables, the tomato paste, and thyme. Cook until the vegetables soften then add the meat back to the pot and add the wine, the paprika, and enough water to cover the meat. Bring to a boil then cover and simmer until your meat is tender.

Hour 1

 Hour 2

Hour 3

Dinner

Austrian Wine-Buying Trip: A Lesson in Food, Hospitality, and of Course Wine

Austria:

 

Terroir

 

 

 

 

 

Bread 

 

Pork

Pastry

Wine

 

And More Things Nice