Lobster Tails Thermidor

Good morning! Guess where I am! I'm in Pismo Beach, CA! I will have to take some pictures of the beach and show them to you sometime. It's beautiful here. Are you wondering why I'm in Pismo Beach? My in-laws live here and we came here for Christmas. We drove here last night. I'm glad that part is over. Driving with a 21 month-old boy can be quite exhausting! :)

Well, today's post isn't about sweets... Are you kinda glad? I know some of you are getting tired of sweet posts... I am.... So today, I'd like to share a great recipe for lobster tails with you. Okay, when I went to Costco a couple weeks ago, I found these smaller sized lobster tails for $14. I had a little dilemma - $14 for these lobster tails? That's such a good deal and my hub loves them! But I've never made anything with lobster tails before and I don't even like them that much. What would I do with it? I almost didn't buy them but then I thought these would make my hub happy so I got them.

I am not a really experienced cook and I'd never made anything with lobster tails and frankly I'd never even ordered a lobster at a restaurant before so it took me a while to find a recipe that looked good to me. I thought about just boiling and butter it but that just sounded too boring to me. Then I found this great looking recipe on food network by Rachel Ray. Boy, I'm so glad that I tried her recipe because it turned out phenomenal! I loved it. My hub loved it! It's very flavorful and fancy, too. I'd charge a lot of money for this meal if I owned a restaurant - just because it looks so fancy and delicious - but in reality, it is so simple and pretty cheap to make. Enjoy this recipe.

Lobster Tails Thermidor

Adapted and changed from Food Network

(To get the original recipe, click on the link above)

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

2 fresh lobster tails (can be frozen) or packaged lobster tails, shell jumbo shrimp or prawns can be substituted

4 tablespoons butter, divided

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Splash dry white wine or dry sherry

1/2 cup milk

1/3 cup grated white cheddar

1/2 teaspoon paprika

2 tablespoons Parmesan

2 tablespoons bread crumbs (if you have Panko, go ahead and use that instead)

Directions:

Bring a pot of water to a boil, 3 or 4 inches deep. Add lobster tails to the water and boil 7 to 8 minutes, or until the lobsters are cooked all the way through (this will make it a lot easier to get all the meat out of the shells). Drain and shock under cold water to cool. Use kitchen scissors to cut away soft underside of tails. Remove meat and save the shells, arranging them in a shallow casserole dish. Chop the cooked meat on an angle into chunks.

Preheat your broiler to high.

Heat a medium skillet and a small saucepot over medium heat. To the small saucepot, melt 2 tablespoons butter. Add minced garlic and cook 3 to 5 minutes until very soft. To the skillet, add remaining 2 tablespoons butter. When the butter melts, add chopped lobster meat and saute.

Add flour to sauce pot with onions and cook together another 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in wine or sherry, then milk. Remove sauce from heat and stir in cheddar cheese and paprika or crab boil. Season sauce with salt and pepper. Pour sauce over lobster meat and stir to combine.

Pour lobster into and over the shells in a casserole dish and top with Parmesan and bread crumbs. Broil on high until golden, 2 or 3 minutes. Serve each tail, spilling over with lobster bits in sauce.

To make this dish with jumbo shrimp, cut up peeled, deveined raw shrimp. Saute the shrimp in butter, as with cooked lobster. Cook until pink and firm and proceed with method. Place the shrimp and sauce into a small casserole, then spoon completed shrimp Thermidor over bed of greens and parsley leaves.

Sook the Cook