I made this lobster mac & cheese on my last cooking show. The theme of the show was cooking new dishes/developing recipes, and this recipe fit in with the theme because I had never tried to make lobster mac & cheese before.
And the reason why I chose this specific dish? My friend, Trish, was cooking with me and I knew that lobster mac & cheese was one of her favorite foods.
I didn't come up with this recipe on my own; my brother is a really good cook and he has a lobster recipe for everything so I simply asked him how to prepare lobster mac & cheese. I only tweaked his recipe a little, using less black pepper (actually, I didn't use any, only white pepper) and adding a bit of milk to thin down the cheese sauce.
I wish I had thought to record all of the comments that my friends made when we sat down to eat after we had finished taping. I definitely remember one of them saying, "I just want to sit here and eat this for the rest of my life," and another one saying, "This tastes like something I would order at the best restaurant I ever went to."
If you make this recipe, I hope you like it as much as my lobster-loving friends do!
Warning! Long, rambling post right here! But if you work your way through to the end, there will be recipes for Lemon Drop Martinis, Caesar Salad Dressing, Lobster Macaroni & Cheese, and Churros Poppers!
I promise that all of these recipes will eventually be posted with the usual step-by-step photos! However, I have been receiving a lot of emails from viewers of the cooking show who would like to have the recipes that I prepared on the last show. Please be warned that I'm still developing some of these recipes, and my notes will reflect some tweaks that I'm planning for the next time I prepare them!
We filmed another cooking show a couple of weeks ago.
The best way I can describe the theme would be "Attempting to prepare or develop recipes that I've never made before."
We happened upon this theme in a roundabout way. I went out to dinner with my friend, Trish. She ordered the house donuts for dessert, and our conversation went something like this:
Trish: Can you cook donuts?
Me: I never have, but I guess I could. I don't deep-fry anything...it's one thing to eat them when you go somewhere and they're already prepared, but to pour all that oil into a deep-fryer...yikes. I may as well just get a syringe and inject it directly into my thighs.
Trish: Do you have a deep fryer?
Me: Yes, I've never used it, it's sitting in my basement, unopened.
Trish: You should do a deep-frying cooking show!
Me: Only if you'll cook with me!
During the past year, I've asked her a couple of times if she would cook with me on the show, and she always said no. I'm guessing that on this particular night, her defenses were lowered by the lemon-drop martinis that we had with dinner. Lower defenses + joy at the thought of more deep-fried donuts in her future = YES! If only I had figured out sooner that plying her with donuts was the key to getting her on camera.
If only I could just get through a blogpost without having a recipe-name dilemma.
Lobster Bites. Sounds too painful.
Lobster Tid-Bits. Huh?
Lobster Appetizers. Generic, much?
I settled on Lobster Phyllo Cups. Eh...but at least it's straightforward.
If I didn't use these phyllo cups, I would have served this cheesy concoction with pita chips or water crackers and simply called it Lobster Dip and avoided the whole what-should-I call-this-recipe dilemma.
Holy cow, I just looked at the picture I posted above and noticed that the box says FILLO shells!!! What kind of cockamamie spelling is that?
I am not going to change my recipe name. I am not going to change it.
And I'm not going to waste any more of your time throwing a recipe-naming tantrum, not when you could be spending your time filling these phyllo/filo/fillo cups with a mixture of yummy, cheesy. lobster!
My culinary exploits have been very limited this week. I have been caring for a family member in the hospital, so I have been spending minimal time at home, and my kitchen endeavors have been limited to whatever I can throw together quickly and keep my kids happy. Things like pasta and meatballs, tacos and that old favorite standby, bacon-and-eggs-on-a-bagel.
None of which are exciting enough for blogging.
So I'm going to kick the excitement waaaaay up (at least for me). And blog about my brother.
He used to own a lobster restaurant. It was an adorable little bistro that was just perfect for him to showcase his extraordinary cooking skills. It was very successful and garnered outstanding reviews. Bobby Flay used to have a cooking show called "FoodNation" and my brother and his restaurant were featured in a segment on Connecticut restaurants.
If you go to foodnetwork.com and search the site for "lobster bisque," the #1 rated recipe for this dish is my brother's recipe, the one that he cooked for Bobby Flay.
Click here to be taken to the recipe. It's not for novices, due to the time involved, but it is not difficult to prepare. Since it makes 20 servings you might want to prepare only 1/4 of the recipe the first time you make it. It's a very smooth, flavorful bisque with chunks of sweet lobster meat.
Here is a photo of the bisque he prepared on the show.
He also prepared "Citrus Lobster" on the show........of all the dishes he had on his menu, this was my favorite. Totally yummy. Click here to be taken to the Citrus Lobster recipe.
He no longer owns this restaurant because the building which housed the restaurant was taken by eminent domain during an urban renewal project. He considered simply re-opening in another location, but the restaurant was named after the street it was on, so unless he was able to find another spot on that street, he would have had to come up with a new name....it's hard enough to alert your customers that you're relocating; changing the name would have been another hurdle. He was unable to find a suitable location and decided to return to his "real job"--psychology.
But the desire to own another restaurant just wouldn't go away, so he kept an eye out for the right opportunity. Which presented itself last year in the shape of a teeny-tiny little pizza joint whose owner was looking for someone to buy out her remaining 11-year lease.
He had plans to change things right from the start, but wisely held off until he got a feel for what shouldn't be changed and what needed to change. And then he made the changes slowly. Like a name change, from Greek to Italian.
And menu changes to reflect his love of lobster. His lobster bisque sells quite well! My kids and I took a road trip to the restaurant last month and met one of his "regular" customers, who just that day learned that my brother was also the owner of the now-defunct lobster restaurant. He proceeded to tell us how he has refused to eat lobster bisque for the last five years because nobody could come close to his favorite (from the lobster restaurant). A friend of his was telling him how good the lobster bisque was at the new pizza restaurant, and that the owner of the lobster restaurant and the pizza restaurant were one and the same.
But the biggest change has been the addition of Italian cookies and pastries.
Like Cannoli Cake.
Neapolitan cookies.......a perfect blend of cherry, almond and chocolate.
And Venetian 7-layer bars.
My brother, his 7-layer bars and his recipe for Italian Cold Melon Star Burst soup were recently featured (along with Roslyn Kind) in a short clip on ConnecticutStyle promoting the Garde theater.
