Lobster Recipes for Perfect Gastronomic Delight

Ask some of your friends, colleagues or relatives about their favorite sea food and is in the ninety nine percent cases the answer would be LOBSTER.

But did you know, before twentieth century, these delicious lobsters grossly lacked culinary sophistication? Prior to 20th century lobsters were mostly the foods of the poor people in the Maritime regions. As the transportations revolutionized during this period, the people in the mainland gradually came to know about the ravishing taste of the fresh lobsters. Culinary intricacies developed surrounding lobsters. Even special types of utensils were innovated for cooking and serving of the lobsters. The result was the creation of some wonderful dishes that still retain its 19th century flavors in some of the famous sea food specialty restaurants in the USA.

If you want to taste your lobster in true American style, then you have to cook it alive and be careful of the time over which it is being boiled. However you can find different opinions with regard to the ideal boiling time of lobsters in different states. In average the boiling time is fifteen or twenty minutes for large lobsters and ten for small. The ideal boiling process involves plunging the lobster into boiling water and to continue boiling until it is tender. Cooking lobster for too long makes it tough and dry and its delicate aroma gets destroyed.

So here we offer two simple lobster recipes that are sure to appeal your taste buds and your gusts' too.

The first recipe is that of lobster roll. To prepare this food you would need the flesh of one medium lobster. Boil it and mash it to get a smooth texture. Mix in chopped lettuce, mayonnaise, salt and pepper. Also add a pinch of salad oil. Now the filling is ready. Spread them over soft rolls and serve hot. This easy to prepare lobster dish makes for an ideal accompaniment for your weekend beer parties. Your guests are sure to love the taste of these lobster rolls.

If you need something wholesome you can try the lobster salads. To prepare this tasty yet simple dish you will need small to medium sized lobsters, lettuce, eggs and potatoes. Hard boil the eggs and potatoes. Take out the meat of the lobster, but leave the claws aside. Mash the potatoes and grate the egg yoke and also cut the lobster meat into small dices. Now take all the ingredients including chopped lettuce. For added taste you can also add chopped parsley. Use generous amount of white mayonnaise so that it can bind all the ingredients properly. Season with salt and pepper. The salad is ready. Chill it inside the refrigerator for some time.
Use your creativity at the time of serving. Scoop out the cold salad and place it on a lettuce leaf and garnish with the whole lobster claw. Also do not forget to sprinkle a little paprika powder and squeeze slight lemon juice over it before serving.

Try these two lobster recipes in your forthcoming party and see how your culinary skills become the talk of the town.

About the Author:
Author Barney Garcia writes about on Lobster Recipes for Perfect Gastronomic Delight to visit :- lobster, red lobster
Submitted on 2006-11-15
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The History of Tiramisu’ Cake: Where and how this famous dessert was invented

Open an old Italian cookbook, browse through the index and… surprise! No Tiramisu’ cake recipe. My first encounter with Tiramisu’ was in 1985. I was in Italy at that time: A friend of mine told me about this new cake recipe she got. She was so enthusiastic about it that I felt compelled to try it immediately. The taste was unbelievably good, as never I had tasted before. Since then I fell in love with this dessert.

Everybody knows by now that Tiramisu’ means “pick-me-up” in Italian, for the high energetic content (eggs and sugar) and the caffeine of the strong espresso coffee. There are many different stories about the origin of Tiramisu’. It is a layered cake; therefore some people place its origin in Tuscany, where another famous layered Italian dessert is very popular. It is called “Zuppa Inglese” (English Soup). It is not English and it is not a soup. Instead is a simple cake of ladyfingers or sponge cake, soaked in “alkermes” liquor, and alternated layers of chocolate and egg custard.

Layered cakes have been around for long time. The brilliant idea in Tiramisu’ is not in the technique of layering, but in the components. The great invention of combining together coffee, zabaglione cream, and chocolate: This is the true innovation in Tiramisu’.

I love to study history of food. In my book “The Timeless Art of Italian Cuisine – Centuries of Scrumptious Dining”, there is extensive information about culinary history of the various regions of Italy. I tried to trace the origin of Tiramisu’ investigating many Italian cookbooks.

The first clue is by the famous Italian gastronome Giuseppe Maffioli. In his book “Il ghiottone Veneto”, (The Venetian Glutton) first published in 1968, he talks extensively about Zabaglione custard. The name of this cream originates from Zabaja, a sweet dessert popular in the Illiria region. It is the coastal area across the Adriatic Sea that was Venetian territory for long time during the golden age of the “Repubblica Serenissima” (The Most Serene Republic) of Venice. Zabaglione was prepared in those times with sweet Cyprus wine.

“The groom’s bachelor friends”, says Maffioli, “at the end of the long wedding banquet, maliciously teasing, gave to him before the couple retired a big bottle of zabajon, to guarantee a successful and prolonged honeymoon”. “The zabajon”, Maffioli continues, “was sometimes added of whipped cream, but in this case was served very cold, almost frozen, and accompanied by the baicoli, small thin Venetian cookies invented in the 1700’s by a baker in the Santa Margherita suburb of Venice”. The addition of whipped cream, the serving temperature, the cookies, all these elements are close to the modern Tiramisu’ recipe. And even the allusion to the energetic properties of the Zabaglione, seem to refer to the Tiramisu’ name.

Later in my research the oldest recipe I could find was in the book by Giovanni Capnist “I Dolci del Veneto” (The Desserts of Veneto). The first edition was published in 1983 and has a classic recipe for Tiramisu’. “Recent recipe with infinite variations from the town of Treviso”, says Capnist, “discovery of restaurants more then family tradition”.

But the final word on the origin of Tiramisu’ is from the book by Fernando e Tina Raris “La Marca Gastronomica” published in 1998, a book entirely dedicated to the cuisine from the town of Treviso. The authors remember what Giuseppe Maffioli wrote in an article in 1981: “Tiramisu’ was born recently, just 10 years ago in the town of Treviso. It was proposed for the first time in the restaurant Le Beccherie. The dessert and its name became immediately extremely popular, and this cake and the name where copied by many restaurants first in Treviso then all around Italy”.

Still today the restaurant “Le Beccherie” makes the dessert with the classical recipe: ladyfingers soaked in bitter strong espresso coffee, mascarpone-zabaglione cream, and bitter cocoa powder. Alba and Ado Campeol, owners of the restaurant regret they didn’t patent the name and the recipe, especially to avoid all the speculation and guesses on the origin of this cake, and the diffusion of so many recipes that have nothing to do with the original Tiramisu’.

I tried countless different recipes form the infinite variations of Tiramisu’, but the classic one, (the recipe I show on my website), the recipe from the “Le Beccherie” restaurant, is still the one I prepare today and the one I prefer.

As an example of one of the many delicious variation of Tiramisu’ I am showing on my website a step-by-step recipe for the “Tiramisu’ with Mixed Berries” that is quickly becoming a new classic.

About the Author:
Anna Maria Volpi is a cooking instructor and personal chef in Los Angeles. Visit Anna Maria website www.annamariavolpi.com/page38.html for step-by-step illustrated traditional Italian recipes for tiramisu, pasta, pizza, lasagna, risotto, gnocchi and much more, articles and food newsletter.
Permission is granted for this article to reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website, as long as no changes are made and the copyright, resource box, and active link to her website are included. Please inform Anna Maria if you use of this article: anna@annamariavolpi.com
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Herbal Rub Roast Turkey Dish

This is a great thanksgiving dish to make for you and your family

Ingredients:
1 13-Pound WHOLE TURKEY fresh or thawed
1 Medium onion quartered
1 lemon quartered
1/4 Cup vegetable oil
1 Teaspoon dried thyme
1 Teaspoon dried tarragon
1 Tablespoon dried rosemary
1 Teaspoon salt
1/2 Teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 325.
Remove giblets and neck from turkey and reserve for broth.

Rinse turkey with cold running water and pat dry with paper towels. Place onion and lemon quarters in neck and body cavities.

In a small bowl, mix oil with herbs, salt and pepper. With your finger tips, gently loosen skin from the breast without pulling off the skin.

Place 1 tablespoon of herb mixture under skin; replace skin. Rub cavities and outside of turkey with remaining herb mixture.

Secure the neck skin to the back with skewers. Fold wings under back of turkey. Place legs in tucked position. May be prepared to this point, covered and refrigerated for several hours.

Place turkey, breast side up, on a rack in a large shallow (no more than 2-1/2 inches) deep roasting pan. Insert an oven-safe thermometer into the thickest part of the thigh, being careful it does not touch the bone.

Cover bird with a loose tent of foil. Roast turkey in a preheated 325 degree F. oven for about 2-1/2 hours.

Remove foil and baste bird with pan juices. Continue to roast for about another hour until meat thermometer registers 180 degrees F. in the thigh.

Remove turkey from oven and allow to rest for 15-20 minutes before carving. Transfer to a large platter and serve with gravy.

About the Author:
Jamie
Author is writter for sites such as Information Today
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What is Nouvelle Cuisine?

The 1970's brought a great deal of upheaval and new ideas to the forefront, and the world of cuisine was no exception. In June of 1975, the British magazine Harpers & Queen coined a term to refer to a new type of food that was sweeping the world: Nouvelle Cuisine.

What is nouvelle cuisine? It is, in a word, the marriage of health-conscious California to traditional France. Consider it an updated version of French cuisine- flavorful food with a light-handed, healthy approach. It's difficult to define nouvelle cuisine in more specific terms because of its huge impact on the way food in general is prepared today. Nouvelle cuisine opened doors to a new generation of restaurant-goers who loved rich tastes and fresh combinations, but didn't want their bodies to pay for it later.

With this new lighter menu came a new style of cooking as well. Chefs in nouvelle cuisine restaurants used shorter cooking times and fresher ingredients, cutting down on the multiple steps that got in the way of the natural flavors of the food. In a world that was waking up to faster-moving times and stricter diets, this new cuisine caught on with incredible speed.

Like any other trend, nouvelle cuisine was often widely misunderstood and misrepresented. Depending on what regional restaurant you visited, you might have been subjected to a low-calorie meal with tiny portions and been told it was nouvelle cuisine. Many chefs and consumers alike did not grasp the concept that lighter did not necessarily mean less.

One of the main goals of nouvelle cuisine was to excite more than just the sense of taste. A skilled nouvelle chef would be able to produce a meal that was artistically arranged on the plate and contained a wonderful mix of smells, textures, and flavors. Oils and fresh spices were used extensively to bring out the natural flavor of the fresh vegetables and pastas in these meals.

The way we cook at home today owes a great deal to nouvelle cuisine. Olive oil, vinaigrette, and fresh herbs are common today in many American kitchens, mainly due to the influence of the nouvelle cuisine movement. Restaurants, too, have taken their cue: before the appearance of nouvelle cuisine, portions were heavier and larger, and consumers went to restaurants expecting to come out full, but not necessarily sated. Nowadays fine restaurants base their expertise on combining flavors, not smothering them; and on their presenting food that satisfies, not simply fills, an empty stomach.

There is still a debate on whether nouvelle cuisine has disappeared from the radar. It has certainly influenced other fields of cooking, but nobody is sure if it can be considered a movement of its own in the current times. Then again, a trend that catches on so quickly is almost always destined to develop in other ways and spread to other things, losing its identity as a separate entity along the way.

About the author:
Troy Pentico
Visit The Tasty Chef for more great tips, techniques, and insights pertaining to cooking and recipes. http://www.tastychef.net
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