Lobster Macaroni and Cheese

i was browsing around foodnetwork.com looking for things to make when this recipe for lobster macaroni and cheese caught my eye. i love mac and cheese, and i love lobster, so how could this go wrong? (eep!) besides, the bf really likes the neelys, so that was another point in its favor.

i went to target to get another pot (since we only have one big pot and, by watching the video, you can see it goes a lot better if you have two big pots) and saw these mini bottles of white wine! perfect for someone like me who only uses wine for cooking and would otherwise just waste an entire bottle! i don't think i would have noticed except some other people were looking at box wine (is it finally cool to drink box wine?) and these four-packs were on the same shelf.



the first step was to grease a pan with butter. umm, are there any better ways to do it than (literally) by hand? so messy :\ (tho this would pale in comparison to the mess that would come later...)



another thing i bought at target! a chopper! (since we all know by now how terrible i am at chopping!) unfortunately one of the shallots i got at the store had started going bad (i think? it had like black stuff inside) so i only had one instead of two :(



i really wanted to use my favorite shape of pasta, campanelle, but my local slightly-ghetto supermarket didn't have it so i used penne like the recipe called for.



i was all about approximation cooking this. thanks to google, i discovered that 5 tbsp is about .3 cups, so i used a little less than 1/3 of a cup (since who wants to count out 5 tbsp? not i!). i'd also never used tomato paste from a tube before (i usually get canned), but since the neelys used tube sauce, i did, too.



now it gets sketch. in the video the roux looked nice and compact, like dough, but i couldn't get it to look like that, so i added an extra tablespoon or so of flour.




well, then the recipe said to add in the white wine and let it reduce. uhh, i added the wine and there was nothing to reduce! the clump (it was now a clump) stayed a clump! i even added maybe 50% more wine, but it still stayed clumpy. oh well. i gave up. :P




once i added the cream (and paprika and cayenne -- both very approximate measurements -- and bay leaf), though, it looked OK. btw, a big F U to whoever invented milk cartons!




i totally overbought cheese, too (which is pricey!!!). i got two packages each of the gruyere and the cheddar, but it turns out i only need one. now i know -- 8 oz of cheese shreds to be about 2 cups. hrmph. oh well. now i just need to find another cheesy recipe (can't be hard) to use it up with.





the recipe said to wait until the sauce could coat a spoon, but umm, it was able to coat a spoon since the beginning, so i just waited a couple minutes for it to reduce (you know, just for show), then added the cheese.




now, i should have just been smart and bought frozen lobster tails, but no. i had to be adventurous and opt for live. O_O wtf was i thinking? i was hoping at the (chinese) grocery store they could just give me tail, but no, he just quartered them.



i knew i was in for trouble, but it didn't hit me until i took them out of the bag. W.T.F. was i supposed to do with raw quartered lobster?!



i pulled on a pair of latex gloves and went to town, just trying to pull as much meat as i could out of every corner of the lobster, but i soon gave up and was satisfied with just extracting larger chunks of meat. um, did you know the meat really really sticks to the shell? ugh. this was all i was able to (err, was willing to) extract from two lobsters. what a waste of money! ($33!!!)



oh well. good enough! of course, by this time, the pasta had become nicely accustomed to the shape of the colander :\ and yes, the lobster is already in the sauce, but of course you can barely see it given the tiny amount that actually went in!



it all came out nicely in the pan, though. topped with panko and chopped parsley.



and after coming out of the oven, still all bubbly:



ready to eat!



verdict? hmm. not bad. definitely could use some lobster. i've taken 3 bites already but haven't yet encountered any lobster meat lol. i also had to add a bit of s&p; it could probably have used more of both during the preparation process. i can really taste the wine, too -- it's obvious i used too much. not really a bad thing, though.

it's really oily, and i don't know if that's because i used way too much butter in buttering the pan? but still, it's good. i probably won't make it again, but if i do, i'll be sure to use frozen lobster :\

p.s. love love LOVE the panko!!! it gives it such great texture!

UPDATE: p.p.s. i think it might be the cheese that's making it oily. i remember while the sauce was simmering after i added the cheese (while i was trying in vain to get lobster meat...) streaks of oil would rise up to the top. hmm.

and yes, it needs moar lobster!