Thursday, January 21, 2010

Tyler Florence :: Stirring the Pot :: Deux


Lobster Cakes. Apparently my sister has rich tastes. Actually I know she's got rich tastes. She definitely needs a sugar daddy (applicants please send references to zegliano@gmail.com). When it was her turn to choose the next recipe of the Stirring the Pot Challenge, she chose lobster cakes. Not what I would pick on a teacher's salary, but I digress.

This was a very tasty recipe - the aioli was phenomenal. It had a real bite- salty, acidic, creamy. Just what I wanted to contrast the buttery, almost flat taste of the lobster.

But to be honest, I had a real problem trying to get the cakes to stick together. Tyler said in the instructions " The mixture should just hold together in a ball in the palm of your hand." Mine absolutely did not. Perhaps it had to do with the quality of the lobster. It was frozed when I purchased it. But for goodness sake, for only half of a pound it was $28 at Whole Paycheck Foods. Maybe my bread crumbs were too coarse - I did use my homemade breadcrumbs after all. And perhaps I slightly overestimated two slices worth. Or maybe the problem was with the recipe. It only calls for one egg white and 1/4 cup mayonnaise to bind one whole pound of lobster and 2 slices of white bread made into crumbs. That just doesn't seem like enough to me. They did stick together enough to form loose lumps in the frying pan. So I just went with it. I'd make this again for sure, but perhaps I would use only fresh, never frozen lobster.

I tweaked it a little by making toast points for the cakes to sit on - just by pan frying buttered bread. In addition after sauteing the lardons and removing them from the pan, I put one pint of cherry tomatoes into the pan to brown. Then I added these burst tomatoes to the frisee salad.

Tag. You're it.


3 comments:

Lilies of the Field said...

thought the same thing at first [ i had loose balls ] can i say that with a straight face, i think not!?!?!?! _ but then I ended up adding another piece of the homemade "bread crumbs" and it turned out perfect.. I told the fish monger, I didn't do frozen lobster. He must of thought i was a snob.. . i guess i would have rather cut the recipe in half than save the three dollars on the frozen stuff.

zegliano said...

whole foods didn't have fresh lobster today. isn't that weird? should have gone to monahans' - best seafood market around.

Two Sisters said...

next lobster recipe, i wanna try to boil one of those suckers... don't know if i have the heart though.. .