Class 22: I killed a Lobster with my bare hands...

Our final class was shellfish. I LOVED this class and it was quite the way to send us off into our own kitchens. It really made it feel like a celebration. I'm going to miss this class...I can't believe its over.

Shellfish falls into 3 categories: crustaceans (lobster), mollusks (one shell or two shell - conch, oysters, and clams), and cephalopods (squid). The cooking time on all is very little to non-existent, in the case of a raw bar. Obviously, freshness is of the utmost importance, and the shellfish is usually alive when you start. Which brings me to my least favorite part of this night's lesson...we had to kill our lobsters with our bare (okay gloved) hands. We needed the shells of the lobster to make the sauce, so we couldn't just throw the thing screaming into the water. Luckily, ours had been in the fridge for a while, so it wasn't moving around too much. When chef demonstrated what we had to do, my vegetarian partner looked right at me and gave this look that I knew meant that I would be the one guilty of murder this evening. So without trying to think about it too much, I grabbed the tail in one hand and the head in the other and gave it a good twist while I looked the other way. Then, I threw the two sides at my partner for her to take care of. Unfortunately, the two sides keep moving for about 30 minutes after being separated, so my partner was none too pleased with me. One of the other students took this opportunity to point out that I was shaking from what I had done! Okay, I'm a bit of a scaredy cat. It was at this point that the chef pointed out that ours was a girl and had a ton of eggs that we'd be using to make a butter (more on that later).


We reserved the claws and tail, which we straightened with a trussing needle so that it wouldn't curl during cooking. Believe me, the Sauce Americaine was not worth the killing, as it was a bit bland. To make the sauce, all the lobster shells (we removed the gills, cut up the bodies a bit, and removed what we didn't want) were cooked in one pot until the shells turned a reddish orange. We then added some chopped carrots and onions and cooked this for a few minutes. After these browned, we added cognac (off the heat), flambed this, and added white wine. After this reduced, we added chicken stock, tomatoes, tomato paste, garlic, and tarragon and simmered for 40 minutes. In the meantime, we cooked our lobster claws and tail in a mixture of water, white vinegar, onion, carrot, bay leaf, thyme, parsley, peppercorns, and salt. Lobster tail cooks in 5 minutes and the claws in 7 minutes. As soon as each was done cooking, we dropped them in ice water to stop the cooking. Once these were cooled, we cracked the shells and removed the meat. When the sauce was ready, we strained it and then put it back on the heat to reduce. We made a roux to thicken this and added a heavy squeeze of lemon. Before plating, we heated the lobster in some of the sauce. Personally, I thought the sauce was not that good...I guess I just prefer my lobster with some mayo on a soft roll! Either way, I think the lobster looked good:



In between our lobster preparations, we got to try our hand shucking clams and oysters. I was able to get the hang of the oysters, because the shell is larger making it a bit easier to get some leverage. As for the clams, I was absolutely miserable at shucking them. After nearly taking my own finger off, I decided the clam won. Chef said that its much easier to shuck them if you put the oysters and clams in the freezer for about 15 or so minutes. Remember, clams and oysters are alive when you're doing this! It's important not to shuck them too far before you're serving them, because the quality is lost quickly. To shuck clams, you put it in the middle of your hand with the hinge toward your palm and a towel protecting your hand. Then you press on the top and bottom shell and try to get the shucking knife (which is different for clams and oysters...clams its a straight blade and oysters the knife has a slightly curved blade) in between the two shells. For oysters, its very similar but you try to get the knife in at the hinge of the two shells and you twist the knife to break the hinge. In both cases, you slide the knife along the base to detach the meat from the shell. Just a delicious little appetizer...that is of course if you can get the knife in there!

Our next preparation was mussels. We sorted through these and removed obvious beards and any that were dead (shells open). We heated some olive oil in a pot and then added garlic, chopped shallots, a pinch of salt and pepper, and some white wine. Immediately, we put a lid on it and cooked for 3 minutes or until the mussel shells popped open. Once they were cooked, we removed the mussels and reduced the heat to cook down the sauce. Then we added some chopped tomato and a touch of cream. This sauce was amazing. We plated the mussels and poured this heavenly sauce on top. Seriously, this tomato sauce was UNBELIEVABLY good. I also couldn't believe how easy and quick this mussel dish was. See...it even looks good:

Our last dish of the entire semester was scallops in a butter thyme sauce. We rinsed the scallops and patted them dry. Then we seasoned them with salt and pepper. We got a saute pan smoking hot and then added some oil and the scallops. We didn't move the scallops around, but rather let them sit there and caramelize and repeated on the flip side. Once these were browned, we added an aggressive bit of butter, lemon juice, a thyme branch, and diced shallots. We continuously basted the scallops with this until they were cooked. I loved this and thought it was very delicious. It would seem that on Christmas eve eve I had my own little feast of the (shell)fish!

Bet you think I forgot about the lobster eggs, huh? No such luck. Chef took the forest green eggs and mixed them in with room temperature butter to make a compound butter. When he was plating his scallops, he put some of this butter on the heat and like magic it turned this vibrant red color as it cooked. This green to red thing was a bit too strange for me so I skipped that on my scallops, which were heavenly just on their own.

That's it for the cooking class! I hope you're all as sad as I am that its over. The good news is this means I'll be back at home in my kitchen, hopefully with some new tricks up my chef coat sleeve.