adampoland96: Lobster and Shiitake Mushroom Pasta and a bad drink pairing ...

Lobster Shiitake Mushroom Pasta

Lobster tails are again popping up in the grocery store and I took advantage and purchased a few. I love lobster tails for their convenience: they are usually frozen so you can store them in the freezer until you?re ready to cook them, they?re easy to cook, very tasty and no tears involved in cooking them! A few years ago, I decided to make Julia Child?s lobster thermidor and humanely killing the lobster was pretty traumatic. I swear the lobster knew what was coming when my fiance picked up the knife to kill him before throwing him into the pot of hot water. That is an experience I don?t want to relive anytime soon, and I am therefore grateful for the existence of frozen lobster tails! I usually bake my lobster?tails, but I didn?t have any good side options in my fridge and decided to just make a meal out of it by making it into a pasta dish. I was lucky enough to get the last shiitakes at the store, but while this dish would probably be more flavorful with wild mushrooms, any would do.

Ingredients (serves 2):

2 Tb butter
2 lobster tails (mine were 4oz each)
6 oz shiitake mushrooms, stemmed, sliced
1 Tb dry basil (or ~ 1/4 cup fresh)
3 green onions, sliced
3/4 cup heavy cream
4 oz clam juice (a bottle is usually 8 oz)
1 ? 1 1/2 cups pasta (uncooked, I used rotini)
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup Italian cheese blend (or plain Asiago or parmesan)

Melt butter in a pot that you can cover over medium heat, I used my Le Creuset dutch oven. Add tails and saute until bright red (3 min). Cover pot, reduce heat to low and cook until the tails are cooked through (~ 5 min). Turn heat off, remove lobster tails from the pot and place on a plate. Using kitchen shears (you can use a knife as well, but I find the shears much more useful when dealing with lobster) cut tails in half, remove meat and cut it in bite size pieces.

pretty lobster

If you haven?t already done so, slice your mushrooms and onions.

sliced shiitake and green onions

Bring the same pan to medium heat. Also, start boiling the water for the pasta.Add the mushrooms, green onions and basil and saute until the mushrooms are soft (~ 5 min). Add cream and clam juice and boil until thickened (~ 10 min). Drop your pasta in and cook until al dente (8-10min).

boiling the cream sauce

When sauce is thickened, add lobster, drained pasta and simmer until heated through. Plate, sprinkle with cheese and enjoy!

Now, when deciding what to drink with dinner, I picked the Delirium Noel because Christmas is coming and it is really cute. This was a terrible choice as it tasted horrible with the pasta dish! If you?ve ever had a bad food drink pairing you know what I mean, if you haven?t, you?re a lucky fellow So if you decide to make this dish, please don?t pair it with the Delirium Noel.?Don?t get fooled by its cute looks, it won?t taste good with the pasta dish.