I'd initially thought about a salad, which I've served several times before. It's very simple, but delicious...but also not as unlike my "first course" as I'd prefer. Sitting around on Thursday night I suggested crostini. From there, the idea flowed and I went shopping for my ingredients, relying upon flavors that I like together. I felt happy about the idea, pleased by the possibility of putting together something fun, and excited about the tastes I hoped to create.
In my kitchen on Saturday afternoon my confidence had waned a little bit. I more or less mangled the first grapefruit, and wasn't sure about the flavor profiles. I put together a sample, and fed it to my official taste-tester. He took a moment to respond, which made me a bit more nervous - what if my third dish didn't work? Could we survive with lobster only TWO WAYS? Then he smiled, and said he loved the flavors. He said they were distinct, and perhaps not everyone would like it, but that it was good. I grinned; that was the point. I love playing in the kitchen, putting together flavors that I love in new ways to see how they react. In the kitchen, sometimes the taste of the resulting dish is greater than that of the individual ingredients. This time it was.
End-of-Summer Lobster Crostini
Makes ~18 appetizers
- 3 lobster tails, about 4 oz. each
- 1-2 grapefruits (this depends entirely upon your knife skills with citrus - I needed two!)
- Approx. 3 inches of fresh ginger, as thick as two fingers (or two thumbs, if you have small fingers)
- 1/3 cup mayonnaise (can be plain, jarred mayonnaise or homemade - for this small an amount the effort of homemade did not appeal to me)
- 1 Tbsp ground ginger (make sure it still smells potent when you open the jar; if not, get a new jar of it, as ground herbs and spices lose potency over time!)
- 1 small French bread loaf, sliced into 3/4 inch thickness; should yield 18-22 slices
1. Find a medium saucepan. Ensure saucepan is big enough to comfortably fit all three lobster tails on the bottom. Set lobster aside, fill pan with water and bring to boil over high heat. Place a colander in your sink. When water in saucepan is boiling, add lobster tails to boiling water. Carefully stir to turn tails. They are done when the shells turn red and curl. Depending upon the size of the tails, this can be in as little as 6 minutes or as many as 10. [You will not be cooking the lobster any more in this recipe, so if you're not sure, you can go for the higher end of the time range. I recommend 7-8 minutes for four-ounce tails.]
2. When lobster is cooked, dump the water and lobster tails into the colander in the sink and run cold water over them. This stops the cooking, and also helps the meat release from the shells. When the tails are cool enough to handle, remove the tails from the shells. Try to do this in a single piece for each tail, in order to have the prettiest results!
3. Slice the tail meat into half-inch thick, coin-shaped slices, give-or-take. You should end up with about 18 slices of lobster meat. If the tails need cleaning, for this preparation I prefer to clean each individual slice of meat with a paring knife and pick, to maintain the lovely shape of the tail slices. Place clean lobster "coins" in a small dish, place a damp paper towel over them, and place in the fridge until ready to assemble.
4. Peel the grapefruit and separate into small segments with no pith or seeds. This is always the hardest part for me - It took me almost two entire grapefruits to get the 18-20 segments, or a similar amount of fruit, for this recipe. As you separate each segment, put it into a shallow bowl. Let the juices from the segments collect in the bowl, too - this is fine and how you want it to look!
5. Peel and mince the ginger. Mix half to two-thirds of the minced fresh ginger into the grapefruit bowl, stirring within the fruit and its juice. Let sit for at least 20 minutes on the counter.
6. In a small bowl, mix the mayonnaise, remaining minced fresh ginger and ground ginger. Taste; if you like, add up to a half-teaspoon more ground ginger. Set aside.
7. Turn oven on to broil. Spread bread slices in single layer on baking sheet. Spritz lightly with olive oil. Broil for a few minutes, until bread begins to feel crusty to touch but is not browning much. Pull pan from oven. Turn over each slice, spritz with more olive oil and broil again until same doneness. Remove crostini from oven and from pan, letting cool slightly.
8. When crostini are cool, spread each with a little of the ginger mayonnaise. Top each with one lobster coin and a segment of the ginger-marinated grapefruit. I encourage you to try to get some of the minced ginger on the crostini with the grapefruit!
9. Put on a beautiful plate, share with friends and enjoy!
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