Applied Science and The Lobster
Posted by Heidi McDonald on Sat, Jul 31, 2010 @ 03:32 PM
A few people wondered this past week why some posts were made by Anthony rather than by me. To maintain my pace for the “230 Top Chef University lessons in 230 days,” and knowing I had a week-long car trip to Maine and back scheduled…I had to work extra hard the week before I left, pre-cooking and writing a couple of posts for my absence, so that I could be gone for a week and still be on schedule. Thanks, Anthony, for your help!
Maine is awesome for its rocky seascapes, fishing villages, islands and inlets; tall pine trees and lumberjack lore; wild blueberries everywhere; signs by the side of the road that say “Watch for Moose,” seagulls bigger than ducks, and its state bird, the mosquito.
But the most talked-about thing from Maine is of course our crustaceous friend, the lobster. You can get a decent-sized lobster from a lobsterman on a Maine dock for about $7.50, total, when here in Pittsburgh, you’ll pay $11 a pound for Maine lobsters. No way to pass up such a delicious deal!
I returned from Maine newly inspired and ready to get cooking again. In Top Chef University’s cream soup course, where I made Potato Leek Soup, Chef Spike explains that the concept can be applied to any cream soup you want to make. Inspired by my trip to Maine, I decided to apply the cream soup concept to the Maine lobstah. (Seafood cream soup is properly called “bisque,” though I used just pre-steamed and diced lobster tail meat and not the shells in my concoction so my soup was not technically a true bisque.)
The best lobster bisque I ever ate came from a restaurant in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, called The Black Pelican. I don’t have a recipe but I remember it had generous chunks of lobster meat, potatoes, and fresh ground black pepper. For my bisque, I added shallots and potatoes (peeled, diced, and boiled), but also other things that taste great with lobster: butter and garlic. And you can’t go wrong with roasted red pepper, which thanks to Top Chef University, I can also make from scratch. I also put in a couple tablespoons of tomato paste, to add some tartness in with the sweetness of the lobster.
As we saw in the herbs and spices unit, cooking is all about experimentation. Chef Spike encourages us to put our own twist on the techniques and recipes we find throughout Top Chef University. So how did I do, using his cream soup technique and making lobster bisque without a recipe?
My family decided it was a winner, with the 6-year-old giving it a "thousand, million percent!" I take particular pride in this announcement because the children concerned have just been eating pretty much nothing but lobster for a whole week, and rolled their eyes when I said I was making lobster soup, but they ate it and loved it, anyway! I was also told the soup tasted "just like the lobster bake we had on that Maine beach" in Reid State Park. You'll just have to take my word for it that it just doesn't get any better than that.
So yes, I WILL be doing one more Soups post after this one, but my detour to Maine inspired a slight detour here. Chef Spike is right: Top Chef University's cream soup recipe can be applied successfully to other cream soups!
Hungrily yours,
Heidi in Pittsburgh