Preserved Lemon Broccoli

I had two bucket-list dishes I wanted to cook before this summer was over:

Lobster rolls

Lobster pasta

Can you tell I like lobster? If you recall, I made the former bucket-list item during my july/hamptons summer apartment café. I made mini top-split buns, dressed my lobster salad with yuzu and tarragon, and garnished the rolls with large, commanding dollops of Petrossian caviar (I swear I’m not that pretentious).

That left lobster pasta as the only item left on my long list of dishes I had to make before winter and seasonal depression set in.

I had been waiting for a special occasion. Luckily, I was on the cusp of reaching 500k Instagram followers for the past couple of weeks. And then I hit it, and convinced myself “LOBSTER PASTA TIME!” Also luckily, I was planning on going home to visit my parents, brother, and dogs. So perhaps unluckily for my dad, he paid for the lobsters. <3

I recall a lobster pasta I had in St. Tropez a couple of years ago (Jesus, maybe I do sound pretentious. And this aside also sounding pretentious isn’t helping). Actually, now that I’m recalling, I never actually got to eat this pasta. Other tables ate this pasta. We were at a small seafood shack outside of St. Tropez. To our chagrin, we learned you had to PRE-RESERVE the lobster pasta if you wanted your chance at eating it. So the waiters would carry these large platters with the most gorgeous red tresses of spaghetti that careened against crimson shells of pristine lobster onto these fortunate families’ tables. We could just watch.

So I guess I wanted to recreate the dish I never had. I envisioned the lobster pasta being adorned with fresh chives and tarragon, accentuated with herbal gin or vermouth, and finished until glossy with butter. What’s more to love?

Since it was my celebration, I called the shots on the dessert. And what’s more special than a large chocolate souffle?

Over the years I’ve learned that a lot of cooking tips that people engrain in you are incorrect. Here’s one: you don’t have to bake a souffle as soon as you prepare it. You can actually cover it with plastic wrap and set it in the fridge for a couple of hours, have your dinner in the meantime, and then cook it while dinner is wrapping up. (And if you’re lazy and don’t want to spend the time cooking it after dinner, the mixture sort of sets up and becomes a chocolate mousse. You have dessert regardless). Actual truth: souffle doesn’t wait for anyone after it’s baked. You better hope everyone is ready. If not, just eat it yourself.

I had the idea to serve my souffle with an espresso creme anglaise, achieving a mocha flavor profile when expertly drizzled atop a small plate of the just-rich-enough chocolate dessert.

The dinner was quite enjoyable. I accidentally bought the wrong kind of pasta, so that was annoying. It was one of those “fresh/dried” egg pastas that cook in about 3 minutes. I never enjoy those. They always have the wrong texture and have no al dente bite. But it tasted absolutely delicious nonetheless.

I was fortunate to have been able to spend such a significant yet insignificant-upon-the-grander-scheme-of-things moment with my family. The four of us have only been able to eat together a handful of times this year. My brother and I have both gotten a lot busier. Cooking at least allows me to savor the most of it.

To another 500k,

Ryan