lobster and jamón fettuccine 意大利扁麵和龍蝦火腿

For a very long time, I seldom buy lobsters. The price just seemed so expensive, and here in the Pacific Northwest we have very good alternative, Dungeness crab that is much cheaper. From what I heard the harvest of Dungeness crabs this year is poor. The price is high so in my recent shopping I decided to pick up a lobster at OM Seafood Inc. I really this store as the owner is very nice. She is never too uptight when I help myself in the picking. I am careful when selecting the live seafood as not to injure them. It is cruel to the animal and expensive to the store. I also avoid getting my hands into the tank water least I contaminate it.

OM Seafood Inc is now my favorite place to get live seafood

I had been burnt too many times buying live crabs and lobsters at my other Asian seafood store. They owners there are particularly uptight about customers helping themselves. Too many time I came home to find out the crab or lobster that I bought has been sitting in the tank for too long, and had wasted away that there is little meat left. I wowed to not let this happen again and I learnt to check.

Being a fairly good cook has its advantages. Instead of eating out at a decent restaurant you can eat incredible well and healthy at a fraction of the cost. It make me feel less guilty when I want to splurge from time to time.

i picked this fat one weight in 3 lb 3 oz; i would prefer a smaller one but i didn't want to hurt any in the tank so i kept the first one that is good even though it is a bit larger than what i want

i set out to make lobster Thermidor; a lobster this size takes about 8 minutes to poach so the meat can be extracted

 it is very important to have a sharp and study knife to slice the lobster into halves

i do the cutting in a tray to capture every drop of the precious juice

 the claws have the most meat of all the lobsters i ate in recent memory

 oh man there is so much meat and tomalley

 i made a large serving of a lobster thermidor

After eating this big serving of lobster Thermidor I am now tired of the dish. I decided it is too rich and tends to obscure the delicate and sweet flavors of the lobster. I think this would be the last Thermidor that I will make for a long time. I want to do something else with the lobster. In the next meal, I decide to make a lobster and jamón fettuccine  with my own improvised recipe using East and West ingredients.

I have been making my own fresh pasta a lot lately and fettuccine would be perfect. I wanted to use a bit of the aged Tennessee Country Ham from Allen Benton. This is American version of jamón. I want to finish dish to be relative light as not to obscure the delicate tastes of the lobster. The "East" ingredients I used are ginger, scallion, and big head vegetable. I used finely juillianne cut Chinese salted turnip (big head vegetable 大頭菜) instead of salt. It brings the crunchy texture and concentrated saltiness in the mouth in each bite. The country ham also bring saltiness so there is no salt added during the preparation of the dish. I wanted the red onion to be half-cooked to bring some sharpness to the dish.

here are most of the ingredients - butter, cream, and cheese not shown

shavings of American jamón

i didn't want a heavy dish so i used butter, cream, and cheese very sparingly

the result is an extraordinary fusion dish - goes extremely well with a glass of dry french wine

as i am not entertaining, the presentation is not important  and the dish is cooked with just the frying pan - one vessel cooking that i am very good at

Despite the list of seemingly very rich ingredients the result is very light in figuratively and literally. There is about 2 TS of butter, 4 TS of heavy cream, and small sprinkle of fresh Parmesan cheese. Also just a little bit of lobster meat goes a long ways. The stars of the dish is the lobster juice and tomalley which a lot of cooks don't know what to do with or afraid (fears of food) to eat it.