The two planned tube strikes this week are about as fun as watching the England cricket team tour Australia. For those that don’t know we lost 12-1; some say at least 13-0 would have shown consistency. Union Chef Bob Crow is holding London to ransom and unfairly damaging small business’s like the Underground Cookery School.
With a commuter catastrophe looming and news of more torrential rain I decided to make a lobster stew to cheer myself up!
The crustacea were boiled and the meat removed. Shells were roasted, then fried in a pan with celery, onion, garlic, leek, star anise, fennel seeds and pepper corns. Everything was covered in white wine/fish stock/water and left to simmer for two hours. The resultant stock was passed through a sieve and reduced with a little bit of saffron. Five table spoons of tomato sauce and the lobster meat were added to the reduction which was heated through.
As the tube strike looms it does grate seeing Bob crow on a £10,000 cruse turning lobster red in the South American sun. It would definitely be easier to bare if the cruse was sailing in the fields of Wiltshire in the pouring English rain and the only mention of lobster was on my plate.
Lobster Stew:
- 2 whole lobster
For the stock:
- 1 Onion
- 1 carrot
- 1 stick of celery
- 1x bulb Garlic
- 1xleek
- 1xsmall nandfull of Fennel Seeds
- 2 star anise
- small handful of pepper corns
- 1 glass of white wine
- 3 L of fish stock (only added once the wine had reduced to 1/5 of its volume)
- Water for topping up
- 1x small jar saffron
For the tomato Sauce, 1 onion fried with 2 cloves of garlic and one tin of chopped tomatoes. Everything blitzed and then reduced down in a hot pan until the consistency is very thick (jam like).
