Our grocery store was having a special on gorgeous lobster tails this week and I just couldn’t pass them up! Wanting to make something with these culinary treasures that highlighted their natural flavor, I decided to make a lobster pasta. If you search lobster pasta on recipe websites, there are a lot (I mean a lot) of cream-based pastas involving lobster. Not wanting to cover the taste of the lobster itself with a heavy cream sauce, I decided on a simple coating of olive oil, garlic, crushed red pepper flakes and a bit of butter. With the addition of fresh, chopped tomatoes, briny capers, slices of fresh fennel and fresh tarragon, this flavor profile really worked well with the tender pieces of lobster. Any long pasta will do, but I chose a whole wheat linguine; spaghetti, angel hair, or fettuccine would also work well. A pasta like this is a prime example of the creativity that comes with cooking! When you have an ingredient to highlight, think of flavor pairings that accentuate its natural flavor, not hide it.
Cooking the sauce for the pasta
(To view this recipe, click on the blue title of the blog post above*)
Lobster Linguine
Ingredients:
- 1 lb. whole wheat linguine
- 4 lobster tails
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
- 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- Pinch of crushed red pepper
- 1 fennel bulb, stems removed and core thinly sliced
- 3 plum tomatoes, diced
- ¼ cup dry white wine
- 2 Tablespoons capers, drained and rinsed
- 2 Tablespoons fresh tarragon, chopped
Directions:
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Put the dried pasta in the pot of water and cook for 10-12 minutes or until al dente. Drain the pasta and put it in a large missing bowl.
- In the meantime, bring another pot of water to a boil. Once the water comes to a boil, place the lobster tails in the pot. Cook for 2-3 minutes, or until the lobster tails turn red and begin to curl up in shape. Remove the lobster tails and allow them to cool.
- To make the sauce, place the oil and butter in a large sauté pan. Heat over medium heat and allow the butter to melt; add the garlic, crushed red pepper and sliced fennel to the pan. Sauté the ingredients for 5-7 minutes, or until the fennel begins to be tender. Add in the tomatoes, white wine, capers and tarragon. Continuing to stir, cook this mixture for another 5 minutes.
- Once the lobster tails are cooled, cut down the belly of each tail with kitchen shears to be able to pop the tail meat out of each shell. Cut the lobster meat into big pieces. Add to the pan of sauce and heat for an additional minute so that the flavors combine.
- Pour the sauce over the cooked pasta, toss, and serve.
Tagged: capers, crushed red pepper flakes, fennel, fresh tarragon, linguine, lobster, lobster pasta, pasta, tarragon, tomatoes, white wine, whole wheat pasta
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