Lobster thermidor
Thermidor takes a cooked lobster, lifts the meat, folds it through a mustard and cheese sauce and grills it back in the shell until gold. The dense sweet tail and claw meat stands up to the rich sauce without being lost in it. Buy a cooked lobster and we split and clean it free, ready to fill.
Ingredients
- 1 cooked lobster, about 600 to 800g, halved (ask the counter to cook, split and clean it, free)
- 25g butter
- 1 shallot, finely chopped
- 100ml white wine
- 100ml double cream
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tsp English mustard
- 40g Gruyere or Parmesan, grated
- a squeeze of lemon and a little parsley
- sea salt and black pepper
Method
- Halve the lobster lengthways if it is not already done. Remove the dark intestinal tract and the gills. Lift the tail meat out and cut it into chunks, crack the claws and keep that meat too. Keep the cleaned shell halves.
- Soften the shallot in the butter for 3 minutes. Add the wine and reduce it by half, then add the cream and both mustards and simmer to a coating sauce for 2 to 3 minutes.
- Off the heat, stir in half the cheese, the lemon, the parsley and seasoning, then fold in the lobster meat.
- Pile the meat and sauce back into the shell halves and scatter over the rest of the cheese.
- Grill on high for 4 to 5 minutes until bubbling and deep gold. Serve at once.
Watch the Rick Stein team at work:
To serve: A green salad and new potatoes or fries. To drink, a chilled Chablis or an English sparkling. The lobster is already cooked, so the grill is only there to warm it through and colour the top. A hen lobster carries roe, a cock has larger claws.
Shop this recipe: native lobster and the boxes. Cut to order at the counter, filleting free.
