Par cook the raw lobster tails by soaking in boiled water for 3
minutes. Remove and rinse with cold water and dry on paper towels,
then remove the meat and chop small.
Use the liquid from the soaked lobsters with additional water* to
cook the elbow pasta for 7 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water.
You want the pasta a firm aldente as it cook more when added to the
sauce and again when baked.
Melt the butter and add the flour to make a roux. Add 100ml milk and
cook till stiff. Remove from the heat. Add the chopped cheese into
the mix to melt. Add the sherry, dashes of tumeric, cinnamon and
nutmeg and some milk. Heat while stirring till stiff again. Stand 10
minutes. Add just enough milk to make a smooth, really thick
bechamel sauce and stir till simmering.
Add the elbow pasta to the sauce and stir 1 minute. You are trying
to get sauce into the elbow pasta.
Lay two thirds of the pasta with sauce into a ceramic baking dish.
Layer with the raw lobster pieces. Top off with the remaining pasta mix.
Cover with baking paper and foil. Bake at 180° for
30 minutes. Remove the paper and foil, grill for 5 minutes.
Stand for 30 minutes before serving.
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*Even better is to use the lobster shells, lobster water and some
prawn heads to make a prawn stock and then use this to boil the
elbow pasta. Boil down to concentrate the flavour before cooking the
elbow pasta.
80g salted butter
75g Plain Flour
30ml sherry
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Tumeric
200ml milk or thereabouts
150g Jalsberg cheese
80g Cheddar cheese (processed)
40g Parmesan cheese
250g Elbow pasta
2 small green lobster tails
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A lot of cheeses work and work well. This is an econmical mix
that's great. The better the cheese the better the result. However,
I really think that any cheese sauce benefits from having processed
cheese in it. It really helps with the texture and consistency.
The tumeric is added to enhance the yellow cheese colour.
Homemade
mac and cheese is not something many people cook anymore. The Kraft
packet mac and cheese has a very real and loyal following. $5.00 or
so a packet and a kids favourite meal done without complaint. And
it's actually not horrible. In fact it's a umami feast. Which is what
makes it kind of addictive to kids.
Cooking a real mac and cheese can be quite expensive. Good
cheese does cost. So I have turned my Mac and Cheese into a
luxury meal with the addition of lobster meat. You might say its a
poor man's Lobster Mornay and that's exactly what it is and that's what it tastes
like. Nice. Obviously more lobster is better.
Macaroni pasta is in the name but I prefer elbow pasta. Instead of
just mixing the lobster through the pasta I like to make a layer of
lobster meat near the top. This concentrates the lobster that you
have in the dish so that it is much more pronounced. This little
trick works really well. The first mouthfuls are full of lobster and
then the remainder has a lobster after taste. Yummy.
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