My brother Vincent lives in a little fishing town called Tofo in Mozambique. And on the Playa de Tofo (the beach), fishermen bring lobster to sell straight from the boats. Seafood is offered to you but never asked for – you never know what they are going to bring in from their haul so you must cook whatever arrives. I was surprised when I saw Vincent preparing a sauce to dress the lobster using passionfruit with mustard, which binds the sauce, and a squeeze of fresh lime but it is so fresh and zingy that I had to include it in the book.
Ingredients
- 4 × 500–600-g/1 lb 2-oz–1 lb 5-oz live lobsters (use
- 2 lobsters for a starter)
- 2 litres/3½ pints/8½ cups court bouillon (see here),
- or enough to cover the lobsters, or salted water
- 40 g/1½ oz/3 tbsp butter
- 2 shallots, chopped
- 4 passion fruit
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard
- finely grated zest and juice of ½ lime
- 4 tbsp double (heavy) cream
- handful of coriander (cilantro) leaves, chopped
- salt and pepper
How to Make It
- Put the lobsters in the freezer for 1 hour to render them unconscious. Remove from the freezer and leave for 15 minutes to come to room temperature. Bring the court bouillon or salted water to the boil in a large pan,
- add the lobsters and boil for 8 minutes. Drain and lightly rinse them under cold running water. You can either remove the lobster meat from the shells now or let your guests do it at the table (see here).
- Heat the butter in a frying pan (skillet) and fry the shallots over a medium heat for 3–4 minutes until softened, making sure the shallots do not brown as this could give the sauce a bitter flavour. Cut the passion fruit in half, scoop out the flesh and add to the pan, stirring it into the shallots. Reduce the heat to low, stir in the mustard and then the lime juice, followed by the cream. Bubble until the sauce reduces by half, stirring constantly. Add half the coriander (cilantro) leaves and season with salt and pepper.
- Add the cooked lobster to the sauce or pour the sauce over the lobster meat. Serve garnished with the remaining coriander leaves and the finely grated lime zest.
