Vermicelli Pasta with Maine Lobster
Chef Luciano Pellegrini with Chef Jenna Marchese
Luciano Pellegrini: Vermicelli is a very thin version of spaghetti, cooks in like three minutes so usually I have my pasta in the water and then I start working on my sauce and it usually takes me in five to ten minutes to work on the sauce. So, this time I’ll actually work on the sauce first because vermicelli is one I usually cook in no time.
And here I have a pan and again on the fire. I’m going to chop some. Now really if you think about it, any entrée can be an appetizer and any appetizer can be an entrée. It all depends on size.
Jenna Marchese: I like to have appetizers with fish because they very light kind of get the palate going and then you just kind of work into that just like the main course. I finish off with that.
Luciano Pellegrini: Very good point, as a matter of fact whenever you’re creating a menu you should always talk to your lighter style item you’re using first and then you progress as it goes on. So I always consider shellfish so to speak, to be a richer dish than any seafood might be. Lobster especially and to us Italian or pasta dishes usually is under the course so a prelude to the entrée.
Anyway, I’ve done my butter there and we’re now do some olive oil and while that roast, I got here some lobster meat which have been pre-steamed already. We’ve got some beautiful cherry tomatoes. I’m going to cut in half or maybe in three if they are too big.
So I got some color brown on my shallots and garlic. I don’t know if you can see that and that’s my kettle sound. I’m going to add some little ingredients again. So, I’m adding that cold ingredients to the pan so I can just go on there and slow things down and I want to sauté that.
Jenna Marchese: And if you’re sweating garlic you want to make sure you have enough oil in the pan because the pan is too dry then the garlic will burn that much faster. So if you have enough oil or enough liquid in there and you have the right temperature it will just simmer and release its juices and its oils without burning.
Luciano Pellegrini: Now today‘s advantages that I and Jenna bind me because I’ll never thought of having it there but I just do it because I’ve been doing it for so long and there is nothing like coming out of fresh of school. Anyway, my chosen herbs for this particular dish is the dill leaf, fresh of course. I’m going to add just sprigs of in it and my water there is boiling and I have a nice roll. I already added salt to it and I think this is enough for today.
So we have a little bit of white wine here. You know when cooking you always wanted to use a big white wine or a good wine but don’t break or bank for it or better yet you actually should have a very good wine to cook with and you drink that and then you use the olive one in the pan. But, anyway I have a little bit of wine again and what does the wine do, it will add a little bit of flavor or a bit of complexity to a dish and it kind of stop the frying process.
Now, all of a sudden I’m braising and simmering. And I’m like starting all those flavors from the lobster, from the tomatoes or nut. You have a little cream and I’m going to add that to the dish and take my lobster tails which I want to cut up into little pieces and I’m going to cut them in half and then eventually use it for garnish.
All I’m going to do to those is just put some butter in the pan, very nice and hot, add a little garlic. I love garlic
Jenna Marchese: Chef you can make this pasta dish with any kind of protein like chicken or shrimp or crab. This goes best with sea foods.
Luciano Pellegrini: Yeah, absolutely. Let’s put it this way, the dish itself you can actually sub the lobster with the shrimp crab or any kind of fish. If you want it to add to a different protein like a chicken whatever or possibly would use a rosemary or sage just to add them instead of the dill.
So I’m just going to add my lobsters to the pan and how’s that vermicelli going on there? The pasta will cook even after you drain it. It will continue cooking and especially vermicelli and what I usually like to do is actually finish cooking the pasta in the sauce.
Jenna Marchese: So if you were in the dropping in the sauce you let that cooked for a few more minutes.
Luciano Pellegrini: And then I take my pasta here and what do you piece of kind of getting me some place for the tasting, Jenna?
Jenna Marchese: Sure.
Luciano Pellegrini: And just lay them down on that cutting board. So what you do is first you take your pasta out and then you let the bowl on this stuff in the pan and then you divide that equally so that not everybody gets. When somebody gets all the lobster and one gets all the tomato and everybody else gets pasta.
By the way, you get will also make the play look and this is for everybody. So here then we got our lobster meat that has a very nice color to it. I’m going to take some of this garlic and it will be enough so that you don’t waste. You just stir it a way, just sprinkle it over the top and a little bit of a magic salt.
And then we just finish it off with some olive oil and of course, to garnish we use the same herbs we use in the dish. So the result is something to be said about achieving some vertical dimension to a dish whenever you present it.
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