Ravioli of Lobster with a Buerre Soy Sauce



Dish as in the book



Lobster...mmmm! Around this time of year you can't move for the stuff, live lobsters have been staring back at me for months on Leicester Market but sadly so has the price of £15 per beast. As luck would have it frozen raw rock lobster tails made an appearance at my workplace last week and at the bargain price of £9.99 for 2 tails it was impossible to resist.

This famous ravioli dish was served to Albert Roux on the 'Marco cooks for....' series, which has sadly been taken down from YouTube, surely a crime against humanity? I'm writing my angry letter as we speak....

Lobster tail

Young protégé Gordon Ramsay went and pinched this dish off his old master and still serves it in his restaurant at Royal Hospital Road today with a few different garnishes. I was lucky enough to sample this last year and it turned out to be one of the highlights of the meal, such fresh flavours from top quality lobster, herbs and salty caviar, it was heaven.



Raw Lobster tail



Marco's version is simply lobster meat and salmon mousse bound with herbs and ginger served with a butter sauce flavoured with soy sauce, sherry vinegar and garnished with crispy fried leeks. You may notice in the picture that scallops are present but due to availability of the delicious ones you find in the shell, I had to make do without.

The dish isn't all that tricky to master once you get past the initial hurdle of getting a whole lobster tail out of the shell from virtually raw. In a pan of salted boiling water, kill your lobster by preferred method (knife through the bonce, freezer torture, car battery etc..) or if by chance your lobster has already met its maker, simply chuck it in the pot and count to 10 using the Mississippi system.

After 10 seconds prise the lobster out and set about working out how to get that plump, fresh meat out of its sharp and quite frankly dangerous exterior. I found the best way was to break the little lines linking either side of the shell on the underside of the lobster (that resembles a ladder) and cracking the very top of the rung peeling the membrane off the top of the tail. Pull gently and you should be rewarded with a nice fresh lobster tail.

Salmon mousse

Next job is to make the mousse by blending salmon fillet with a whole egg which is simple enough, use a bit of this mousse to bind the lobster meat, chopped ginger and coriander plus a seasoning of salt, cayenne and lemon juice until it just holds together. Leave covered in the fridge for a few hours (I did mine overnight).

The next day all that was left was to make the pasta which was simple enough. Cut out and fill the ravioli and make the sauce and garnish.

The sauce comprises vegetable stock with butter and the soy and sherry vinegar reduction. Being both lazy and patriotic towards Marco, I went with Knorr vegetable stock pot. For research purposes of course, seeing if Marco was really talking a load of old guff about these being superior to a restaurant-made stock.....

Ravioli filling

Pasta action

1 whole stock pot for 60ml of vegetable stock was a bad miscalculation but the flavour of the sauce was intense. Add butter and a touch of the soy/vinegar reduction and things were looking very good indeed although perhaps next time I'd go easier with the stock.



Sizzling Leeks



Cutting leeks into a fine julienne and frying in oil until crisp left little else other than to boil the ravioli and plate up....

The final plate

I was delighted with the ravioli. Filled to the max and cooked to perfection. It was like sitting down at Royal Hospital Road and eating that starter all over again. I loved the heavy hit of the sauce but think it could have done with a squeeze of lemon, something to cut the richness of the soy and butter. The leeks were crunchy and added great texture and overall it's a top quality dish. Also the addition of frozen lobster definitely didn't hinder the taste or texture of the dish, a very worthy investment.

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