Friday, October 2, 2015

Lobster Artigianale!

Lobster tails were on sale this weekend, so I grabbed four tails to try and make a dish with the gigantic pasta rolls I picked up after dinner one night at Eataly. I took a quick glance at some suggestions for making a sauce from scratch and then whipped something up.

Ingredients
4 Lobster tails
1 Whole bag Artigianale pasta
1/2 Lemon
2 Spoons of sugar (add more if you want it sweeter)
5 Tbs of salted butter
1 cup white wine added in slowly
Minced parsley
1/2 tsp Garlic powder
1/2 tsp Granulated white onion
Carton of grape tomatoes
Carton of Campari tomatoes
Salt
Butter and white wine in a sauce go well with seafood!

Cooking Instructions:

Slice the campari tomatoes in halves and put them into the oven at broil. This will soften the tomato quickly and make it easier to stir into the sauce. (I was worried about getting it to roast since I couldn't find my aluminum foil.)



Slice all the grape tomatoes in halves. Then, melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a pan. Add the sliced grape tomatoes, squeeze half a lemon and add 1/4 cup of white wine on medium heat.



Boil some water for the pasta and add some salt. Cook the pasta for about 8 minutes and then drain. It should not be cooked all the way.

When the tomatoes from the broiler are ready, take them out and add them into the sauce. Add another 1/4 cup of white wine. Stir and break up the tomatoes.

Now that the tray with the Campari tomatoes are free, put the lobster tails on a tray and bake it for about 8 minutes at 350 degrees.

Now, go back tot the pan and transfer the chunks of tomatoes to a blender to puree the tomatoes. (I use a nutribullet since we do not own a blender.) Pour the puree back into the pan and add another 1/2 cup of wine, two tablespoons of sugar, 1/2 tsp of garlic powder, 1/2 tsp of granulated onion.

The sauce will begin to thicken and the edges of the pan will start to caramelize thanks to the addition of sugar. If you like it sweeter, I suggest stirring it once in a while when the edges are brown to get it incorporated into the sauce. Add another 2 tablespoons of salted butter. (You may also continue to add more wine or water to adjust the consistency of the sauce.)

When the lobster tails are ready, take a scissor and cut along the middle of the shell at the top and bottom of the tail. This just makes it easier to get the meat out of the lobster. Then cut the lobster meat into chunks.

Add the pasta into the pan with the sauce, then throw in the losbter, and some minced parsley. Allow the pasta and lobster to heat up again, and the sauce to thicken a little. Stir and make sure the pasta rolls are well coated with tomato sauce. Sprinkle some salt, and stir again.

All the things you need for the pasta! (Minus the can of whole tomatoes. I decided to skip it and just use fresh ingredients.)
Then start serving it in a bowl!
Dinner is served! 
The nice thing about this recipe is that the sauce will not make the pasta too soggy, as it is meant to just lightly coat the pasta and the lobster meat. I suggest eating it with a spoon so you can scoop up some of the sauce from the bottom of the bowl with a bite of pasta.



Monday, September 28, 2015

Hello World Ver 3.0

Hi,

My name is Victoria, and I like to cook. Once in a while I host dinner parties for my friends with my boyfriend in our place. I do the cooking, he does the dishwashing. It's a mutually beneficial relationship that way.
Mexican Dinner Party! (Birthday Celebration!)
While I did not grow up at home learning how to cook from my mom, my sister and I actually love making food once we had our own kitchens.

My sister's sweet remodeled kitchen!
I've done quite a lot of cooking with some of my dear friends in San Francisco since high school, and whenever I have a chance to visit them again.
Burmese food... tastier than it looks!

I moved to Chicago to start a new life, and I met Xiao, and together we check out restaurants that serve culinary delights and I search and read up on dishes and some cooking blogs that have opened my eyes to a bounty of flavors in the kitchen, inspiring me to recreate or redesign a dish to suit my taste.

Eating Italian pasta at Eataly has inspired my Italian cooking!
While I feel like a jack of all trades, I also feel like I am a master of none. In some ways it is neat that I am multi-talented, but I also want to get progressively better at my hobbies. I have narrowed them down to cooking and art, with music as a third option some day.

If my friends visit me and want to eat my food, I put them to work in the kitchen!
My famous Beowulf and Dragon death scene from high school!

During working hours, I am an engineer working on international safety and standard guidelines, dental research, and collaborative projects with dental students at universities nearby.

Research Engineering Assistant at the American Dental Association
My life is very hands on and creative, and I always hope to either push more in one direction or another of my creativity. 

It's kind of funny that there is a default Victoria's Secret theme for a blog. So that's what I'll use :)