Lobster Thermidor and a French Fry Recipe from Heaven

This is my first day of cooking after a wonderful holiday visiting friends in VA.  While there I learned of a fabulous recipe for making French fries.  If you have been following you will note that I was ready to send Jim to MacDonald’s if I had a desire for fries.  All my tries have been a pain in the neck and not very good.  My friend Mike discovered this recipe on Shine from Yahoo.  It was developed by a very famous French chef Joel Robuchon.  These are the easiest and most delicious fries you have ever tasted.  This to me is the recipe find of the century. 

Ingredients: 

2# large russet potatoes; cut into long French-fry sticks, about 3/8” x 3/8” thick. 

Vegetable oil to cover the potatoes by 1”

Salt

Directions:

1.       Rinse; and shake off the water from the peeled and cut potatoes.

2.       Transfer the potatoes to a large deep heavy pot, spreading potatoes so they’re no more than 2 layers deep. 

3.       Pour in safflower or vegetable oil to cover the potatoes by 1”. 

4.       Place pot over medium heat. 

5.       Cook for 15 minutes (oil will begin bubbling gently.)

6.       Continue cooking, occasionally loosening potatoes from the bottom of the pot with a heatproof spatula, until potatoes are very tender, 25-30 minutes more.

7.       Increase the heat to medium-high and cook until golden and crisp, about 15 minutes longer (oil will bubble more vigorously. 

8.       Using a slotted spoon, transfer fries to paper towels to drain.  Season with sea salt. 

This recipe is truly sent from heaven, thank you Mike!

I accompanied these fries with Lobster Thermidor from Jean Pierre Tardy’s cookbook.  I was going to make this Christmas Eve as a follow up to the Lobster Bisque, but lunch at Jim’s cousins was so big we were not hungry enough.  So back to cooking and why not start with a bang.

Ingredients:

3 lobsters (1 ½#) cooked and cooled (I used 2# of the cooked lobster I had purchased at Costco)

¼ C crabmeat, diced

½ C each of red and green bell pepper, diced

1 egg white

¼ t cayenne pepper

3 T sour cream (I used Greek yogurt)

3 T bread crumbs

# T Parmesan cheese

1 C fish stock

1 C white wine

Directions:

1.       Split lobsters lengthwise and remove all lobster meat.  Dice lobster meat.  Retain 6 lobster shell halves. (My first Christmas married to Jim, my young brother-in-law Vince gave me lobster shell shaped dishes.  We have used them many times with corn on the cob, but I think this is only the second time I have actually made lobster thermador in them.  I altered the recipe slightly to accommodate these dishes.)

2.       Combine lobster meat, crabmeat, diced peppers, egg white, cayenne pepper, and sour cream in a large bowl.

3.       Fill empty lobster shell halves with lobster meat mixture.

4.       Cover lobster meat mixture with bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese.

5.       Place filled lobster shells win a large baking pan.  Add fish stock and white wine to baking pan. 

6.       Bake for 35 minutes at 375 degrees F. 

As I was not using real shells, I added a total of ½ C of white wine to the lobster in the dishes and then topped with the crumbs and cheese.  I did not use the fish stock at all.  The dishes were also bigger than the tale of the size lobster he cooked.  The recipe says serves 6 but it is part of a whole lobster feast that includes the puffs and bisque that I made Christmas Eve and Lobster tower which is kind of a salad with lobster. 

Jim served a Chardonnay by my favorite winemaker Ferrari-Carano 2010.  Jean suggests a white Chateauneuf-du-Pape but we did not have any.  This was a good as going out.