2011 Christmas Recap

For Christmas, we typically have two holiday meals. On Christmas Eve, we have a seafood dinner typically with lobster with some sort of side, and then for Christmas dinner, we have hot pot. This year was no different. 

Vodka Pasta: This was a request from my sister who has fallen in love with the vodka pasta from Sfuzzi in Dallas. It's a simple recipe and I've grown fond of Giada's version.  Check out my recipe here.  In an effort to add some sort of veggie to our meal, I sauteed up a bunch of spinach and added it to the top of the pasta.

Steamed Lobster: A lobster for each! Simply clean the lobster and then steam with some water until cooked. If you want to make another dish out of this, keep the lobster steamed water and lobster shells after you clean it of the meat. With just a little bit of broth making with the shells and some veggies, I was able to make a seafood risotto the next day for lunch.  Recipe to come soon.

Oven-baked Drum: Look at the size of this!  Even more impressive, my mom caught this fish! It seems like my parents go fishing at least once a week and the a few days before Christmas, my mom caught this enormous drum. When my mom called me with excitement about catching this fish, I actually had no clue of the kind of fish. Quick google and here you go. My mom seasoned the fish, added lots of butter and slices of onions. Baked in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20-25 minutes.

Russian Tea Cakes: To cap off the night, Russian tea cakes for dessert! Recipe can be found here.

And to end this post, my little booger of a niece, Sophie. She did take a few bites of the pasta (hooray!) and a few nibbles of the fish. The lobster, not so much, and much rather preferred salty seaweed snacks...

Lobster Linguini

This year, we decided to go the non-traditional route with our dinner and have surf and turf - with the custom hot pot, of course.  I must say, Lobstah, was delicious!  So happy!  I haven't had lobster in a very long time and for a moment, I did wish I didn't have it so in the future, I'd be all sad I can't have it on a daily basis. 

Anyways, we saved all the lobster shells and the next say, I use those shells to make a delicious and flavorful stock for some seafood linguini. Can be a tad time consuming but I think it's well worth it - getting as much as possible outta those expensive ocean critters. 

Sorry for the lack of photos but battery was drained from taking many pictures of my niece and it was charging during this time.

Lobster Linguini
Serves 5

Lobster Stock:
Leftover lobster steam water (use the leftover water you steamed the lobster in)
1-2 cups water
Lobster shells
1 can tomato paste
3 stalks celery cut into large pieces
3 carrots cut into large pieces (no need to pell)
1 onion sliced into quarters
S&P

1. Take the lobster water (if you have any), 1-2 cups water and lobster shells and put into a huge pot.  Add in the tomato paste and all the veggies.  Bring to a boil and then let it simmer on medium for a good 45 minutes.  You want all that lobster goodness to seep out into the stock.

2. Once done, drain the pot and discard all the contents other than the stock.  Put the stock into a smaller pot or the same one, and let it cook a little longer on medium to reduce down.

3. Sister was on a non-dairy diet so I used just a teeny bit of cornstarch to help thicken. I imagine this would be delicious with a tbsp of butter or a dash of cream.

Lobster Linguini
1 pkg linguini
1/4 lb of shrimp, peeled and devined
4 garlic cloves chopped
1-2 roma tomatoes cut into cubes
S&P
Small handful of chopped parsley
Lobster Stock

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil to cook the pasta. Cook pasta according to the directions. I liked the linguini but you can use any other type of pasta. 

2. In your pan with the lobster stock, bring it back up to a boil and quickly cook the shrimp in the stock.  This should only take a few minutes and it doesn't hurt that it also gives more flavor to the stock!

3. In a hot pan big enough to hold the pasta, add olive oil and the minced garlic.  Then add in the tomatoes and let them cook on medium high until they start to fall apart. Next, add in the lobster stock until well blended.  Cook for a few minutes until they are well blended and then add in the shrimp and the pasta.  Give it a good mix and to top it off, add in the parsley.  Enjoy!

Lobster and Corn Chowder

I have wanted to try this recipe for a long time but since this is such a decant recipe, I needed several mouths to feed. Last weekend, my sister and soon to be brother-in-law came into town to celebrate Chinese Father’s Day and this was a perfect chance for me to make this dish. It definitely didn’t disappoint but man, was it a lot of work! Similar to mussels in white wine, dipping toasted French bread into the soup was even yummier. This wasn’t the healthiest dish either…..with lots of cream and whole milk, but isn’t that alway the case? Mmm hmmmm.

Would I make this again? I don’t know if this was worth the time or if I did something that was way too complicated. If I can buy pre-cooked lobster, that would probably shave 30 minutes off the prep time, but, the real time consuming part was extracting all the meat from the shells. This took us another 25 minutes and there were three of us too! Also, this was a pricey meal so not sure I’d make this again unless it was a very special occasion. And, while this was so good, you probably need a side dish as well.

So….I probably won’t be making this for a while and I wish I had a team to help prep food because, Barefoot Contessa, you made this look waaaaay too easy!

Lobster and Corn Chowder
Recipe by Barefoot Contessa

1. Click here for the ingredients. I’m not posting since this was my first time to make it and didn’t change a thing. Clean the lobsters with a quick scrub and remove the bands on the clinchers. In a big pot, add some water and put the lobsters in to steam for roughly 15 minutes. I reserved the water/broth for later. Take them out and cool for 10 minutes.

2. Take all the mean from the lobsters – shells, claws, everything – and don’t throw away the shells. One tip for the small legs instead of wasting them, I use a rolling pin and start from one end and roll out the meat to the tip – a tip from Alton Brown (love him!). Use the back of a knife on the claws. Cute the meat into big chunks.

3. Cut corn from cobs and keep kernels for later and cob for the next step. In a big pot, melt butter and add the onions until glassy. Add the sherry and paprika. Add the milk, cream, wine, lobster shells, corn cob and bring to a simmer. Cover with a small peek and let it cook for a good 30 minutes.

4. After 15 minutes, start another big pot and brown the bacon (I used Pancetta bacon). Take the bacon out and then add the potatoes, onions, celery, corn kernels, salt and pepper. Cook for maybe 5-8 minutes until smells all yummy.

5. So take the stock and remove all the shells and cobs. I drained it slightly to not get any shells.
6. I also added in roughly two cups of the lobster broth (from when I boiled/cooked the lobster) and cooked for another 10 minutes. Add the stock to the veggies pot and let it cook for another 15 minutes until potatoes are done.
7. Add lobster, chives (which I didn’t do) and bacon. Now enjoy with the rest of the wine that you didn’t use for this dish!