Lobster

Meet Larry... Larry the Lobster

As birthdays go, I'm not one to get that worked up about them, or presents. There's not much I want and I certainly don't hope for or expect lavish gifts that seem to be de rigueur these days. I'll always remember being asked if I knew I was getting the eternity ring the Husband gave me for Christmas several years ago - as if it was somehow something I'd asked for and was expecting or felt I had some kind of right to. I was completely gobsmacked by the question to be honest - I mean, it was a lovely, gorgeous present, but I would never have expected anything like it. And now that I'm on the right side of 40, honestly, what I enjoy about birthdays is the little things, time with family & friends, an excuse to have a little trip out - to a gin distillery perhaps.... I mean if people want to give me awesome things like a ghillie kettle, then that's all well and good, but presents don't matter to me in the same way that they seem to to some people (and I exclude children here - children are perfectly entitled to get excited about presents - I'm not such a miserable humbug...).

A ghillie kettle - the best 43rd brthday present agirl could get.

I wouldn't normally talk about birthday presents except that 10 days before my birthday, I received an early present, and a very surprising one at that. Imagine, if you will, the scene: I am taking 5 minutes out on a Sunday morning. My mother in law and her new husband who are visiting for the weekend have taken themselves off for a little excursion, and the Husband and the children are engaged in various bad weather day activities. I am crocheting (rock & roll).

My mother in law and husband return and I hear them asking where I am. "Are you sitting down Sally? You'd better put that crochet down" 

And the next thing I know, there's a plastic carrier bag being placed on my knee it feels heavy. Something shifts. I peer into the bag, and see dark shell. At first I think it's mussels, and then, a more vigorous shift - vigorous enough to make me jump and utter a most un-RecipeJunkie-like shriek: for I pride myself on my ability to deal with spiders, slugs and all many of creatures normally assigned the 'fear factor'....

in my defence, I defy anyone who wasn't expecting it not to react in a similar way to having a live, and rather angry, lobster dropped in their lap...

Fortunately, I didn't drop the bag, for if I had, the rather magnificent and indignant (justifiably so) Larry would have been allowed to get loose in our sitting room. His claws were rubber banded together, but he was fluttering the curious flaps he has on his belly in a rather aggressive manner, so I put him back safely in the bag on the kitchen work surface, and went to consult Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (well, his Fish book - our hotline isn't working at the moment...).

Angry and magnificent - could I really bring myself to plunge him into boiling water? Well, depending on your point of view, I'm sorry to disappoint you/pleased to say that I rose to the challenge. Based on Hugh's advice, I popped Larry into the freezer for a couple of hours, and then found the biggest cooking receptacle I could find, which turned out to be the jam pan. 

The theory about putting them in the freezer is that the lobster will drift off into a chilly coma and, when you plunge him into the boiling water, won't have time to come to and realise what's happening before it's all too late and you've got a beautifully pink ready to eat lobster ready for nothing more than some lemon juice and a slather of mayonnaise.

Water appropriately salinated, then, I applied the gas and waited for the water to boil - my VEGETARIAN mother in law looking on all the while. And reader when the time came, I did it. Larry went into the water.

How do I feel about this? I did feel slightly queasy about the whole thing, I must admit, but I'm not a vegetarian, and really, I should be prepared to kill something if I'm going to eat it. I felt there was a lesson to teach the children too - something about putting your money where your mouth is...

I have no such qualms about mussels - but they don't look like living things in the same way as Larry the lobster did, all his indignation intact before his swift consignment to the freezer. There was an element of 'face' going on too - I mean, presented with a lobster by your mother in law, what would you do? Wimp out, or rise to the challenge? I'll say no more.

We ate him, Larry. And he was delicious. Caught that morning, my mother in law & hubbie had acquired him from the fisherman who operates off Aberporth beach as he came in from his morning's work. Apparently, as the boat came in, a number of people appeared to select goodies. I've never seen this, and I'm pleased that it happens, because did you know that most of the fine and delicious sea food caught in these beautiful waters around Wales and the rest of the British Isles is all shipped to Europe? It's criminal, but apparently there's no market for it over here. They paid £10 for Larry - which makes me think, I need to get to know the fishing schedules a little more intimately...

Thai Monkfish Curry

So I may have moaned more than once on here that I never win anything. Well, not since I won 12 bottles of gin via a competition in an 'in-train' magazine on what used to be called the East Coast Mainline...

Well, that streak of not winning was recently broken when I entered a fish recipe into a little competition that Pembrokeshire Fish Week were running earlier this summer, and knock me down with a feather (or a wet fish) - I won!

You can read my winning recipe here - but what I want to tell you about is my prize.

A fantastic box full of delicious fish and shellfish from Claws Shellfish, a Pembrokeshire based .family run seafood company.

After a bit of to'ing and fro'ing, I picked my box up in Haverford West on a Friday afternoon. We had friends coming for the weekend, and I was stressing that I hadn't got the chicken I'd intended to knock up a Thai chicken curry with, out of the freezer.

But I didn't have to worry, because as well as some fresh fish that I could pop straight in the freezer, my box included a dressed crab, a pot of mackerel pate, 4 scallops, some smoked salmon and a cooked lobster. I needed little more than some bread, salad, some chorizo to cook the scallops with (always in my fridge - the chorizo, not the scallops) and some stuffed mini peppers (and a bottle or 2 of white wine) and we had a feast.

The box also included monkfish, salmon, and a lovely piece of haddock all of which went in the freezer at the time, but has been much enjoyed since. I used the salmon in a version of the quickest (and most delish) fish pie ever, using sugar sap peas and full fat creme fraiche for extra creaminess and comfort.

The monkfish was fantastic in a Thai inspired curry recently. It's a fairly firm fish which can take robust flavours and responds well to quick cooking, perfect in this kind of easy but tasty meal.

*****

So what should follow now is a recipe, but I started this post a good 3 weeks ago and forgot to write down the exact ingredients. What I do know is what the photos tell me - which is that I used courgettes and mangetout peas, and served the curry on noodles.

I can also remember that I made the sauce by frying off a couple of tablespoons of shop bought Thai curry paste, adding a tin of coconut milk, and then adding bits of tamarind paste from a block that I bought not long after we moved to Wales, to taste. The paste that I should have used to cook a curry for our friends, but fed them lobster instead...

The addition of the tamarind paste took the edge off the slightly artificial flavour that my (cheap, inferior, bought in a supermarket in a moment of madness, to be honest) Thai curry paste had. I'd been quite worried about dinner before adding the paste in, and frankly, it rescued dinner and created a sauce worthy of the monkfish.

So this serves to tell 2 tales. Firstly, that Claws Shellfish sell fantastic fresh fish and shellfish, and if you have the opportunity, you should visit their stalls in Haverford West or St Davids Farmers Markets, or anywhere else you find their produce. Secondly, that having some tamarind paste in the fridge is a good idea if you are prone to panic buying jars of cheap Thai curry paste.

Hmm.