Curry up! I'm Makin' Lobster!

August 7, 2020
West Indian Lobster Curry
Pg. 81
Jasmine, Season 5 (Winner!)
24 down…75 to go!

**I promise it tasted better than it photographed! LOL**

Confession: I’ve never really known how I feel about curry, and I blame that on the fact that I haven’t tried/been exposed to much Indian food in my life. None of the places I’ve lived (Montana, Arizona, Hawaii, Michigan, and now, Texas) have had a big Indian food scene. So when it came to getting ready to try this dish, I was a little nervous about whether or not I would like it. Conclusion: it is one of my favorite dishes to date!

Oh my word, it was so good, y’all. The sauce was so creamy and comforting. The lobster was—well, it was lobster, so it was obviously amazing. All I can say is, I want to make this meal at least twice a month, especially in the winter. Next time though, and don’t judge me, I’m going to experiment with frozen lobster meat. I know that fresh out of the shell is the best, but boy is it pricey. My ONE lobster tail was $34.99. So I’m gonna see if I can recreate this meal for closer to $20 rather than upwards of $40. I’ll be sure to report back and let you know if it tastes even half as good!

What I did differently:

I felt very strongly that we needed some rice to go with this meal, so I made some steamed white rice on the stove top and enhanced it with scallion whites and minced ginger as aromatics.
I was supposed to boil, blanch, and quickly sauté orange and purple sweet potatoes to add to the dish. I went to Central Market, and they had a pretty big selection of different potatoes. I saw a purple-ish sweet potato but it wasn’t labeled as a purple sweet potato. I’m still acquainting myself with new veggies, and this was a big indicator that I have a lot of learning to do. When I cut into it at home, it was just as orange as the other one I bought. Whoops. Still, they were both delicious. But I did sauté them about 4x as long as it called for. I’m not into crunchy sautéed sweet potatoes.
I was also supposed to add some peas. I chose to pass. Peas are my least favorite veggie. Sorry, not sorry.
When making the curry, you start off by sautéing bell peppers, onions, celery, and Serrano chiles. Eventually you add in all the liquids (coconut milk, seafood stock, tomato paste, V8 juice, lime juice, and white rum) and let it simmer down for about 45 minutes. Then I was instructed to strain the sauce and “discard the solids.” And I was like, “Heck no!” I strained it, whisked in the butter, plated the rice, lobster, sweet potatoes, garnishes, and then put some hefty spoonfuls of those delicious veggies on my plate. Why would I waste such yummy vegetables?!
The suggested garnishes were cherry tomatoes, chili oil, finger limes, micro cilantro, and chopped chives. This didn’t happen.
1. We hate raw tomatoes, so we omitted those.
2. I could not find chili oil, finger limes, or micro cilantro at any of the major markets I shop at, and at some point I just have to shrug my shoulders and say, “I’m not in the coveted MasterChef kitchen with unlimited access to the worlds finest ingredients.”
So we used Cholula hot sauce, regular limes, and regular cilantro.
3. I forgot to add chives to my shopping list, so I used green onion instead. Honestly, I think that’s even better.

**You know when a recipe calls for wine, rum, vodka, you name it, I’m gonna pour a little in a glass to drink with the dish.**

All my love,
Dani, a big tid

P.S. What is your favorite Indian dish? I’d like to start branching out a bit more and trying different dishes in that cuisine. Leave me your suggestions in the comments! <3