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Garlic Lobster Pasta

The other day, Mike randomly came home with two cooked lobsters. “Surprise!” he said. We LOVE lobster but hardly ever buy it or eat it at home. I have made lobster before (lobster risotto, creamy lobster pasta, and a steak and lobster sandwich) but it’s just not one of the things that comes to mind when we’re thinking of dinner. I don’t know why because it’s actually easy to cook and is super impressive and delicious. This lobster pasta is essentially an aglio e olio with a secret ingredient. It’s loaded with pieces of lobster and finished with crunchy bread crumbs. The lobster is tossed in at the last minute, just to heat it through and get all those garlicky umami flavors on it without overwhelming the sweet flavor of the lobster meat. It comes together super quickly, like most pasta dishes. Grab some cooked lobster tails, and you have a quick, easy, impressive date night dish.

admin - Feb 13,2024 -

How to make garlic lobster pasta

Prep the ingredients: toast the breadcrumbs, chop the parsley, shell and chop the lobster into bite size pieces.
Cook your pasta in salted boiling water, timing it so it cooks one minute less than what the box considers al dente.
While the pasta is cooking, warm extra virgin olive oil in a skillet over medium heat.
Add sliced garlic and let it infuse the oil, softening but not browning.
After the garlic is super aromatic and soft, stir in the crushed red pepper, parsley and oyster sauce, making sure everything is mixed together.
Use a 1/3 measuring cup and scoop some of the starchy pasta water and add it to the pan with the garlic. Bring it up to a simmer, stirring and emulsifying the sauce.
When the pasta is ready, use a pair of tongs to transfer it over to the pan with the sauce.
Add in the lobster and toss everything until it is glossy with sauce, adding extra pasta water if needed.
Finish with the breadcrumbs and extra parsley and enjoy immediately!

Ingredients

Extra virgin olive oil – use the good stuff because you deserve it. First cold press is best and as a rule of thumb, go for a dark or opaque bottle because olive oil doesn’t like being in the light.
Breadcrumbs – toasted breadcrumbs add crunch and texture. I like grabbing the ends of sourdough and blitzing them in a food processor and cooking the coarse crumbs in olive oil until they’re almost deep fried and completely caramelized and golden.
Flat leaf parsley – an underrated ingredient! I feel like a lot of people think flat leaf parsley is there just for garnish. But it adds a huge hit of freshness and when you cook it in oil it deepens the flavor. I love this sauce because it has parsley cooked in olive oil and it finishes the pasta for a hit of freshness.
Spaghetti or other long pasta – I like the simplicity of spaghetti with this dish but of course there is a huge variety of long pastas out there. If you’re going to make your own, this is the perfect recipe to pair with fresh pasta https://iamafoodblog.com/how-to-make-fresh-pasta-the-easy-way-our-almost-no-knead-pasta-recipe/. If you’re buying it, go for a bronze extruded pasta with a rough surface that will help the sauce catch and cling.
Crushed red pepper flakes – a little (or big, depending on your spice tolerance) of crushed red peppers that will bloom in the oil and impart a bit of warmth and spice.
Oyster sauce – this is the secret ingredient that adds a huge amount of umami and seafood flavor to the sauce. It’s sweet and thick and full of complexity. More on oyster sauce below.
Lobster – you can go with whole cooked lobster or cooked lobster tails or even cook your own whole lobster or tails if you’re comfortable with that!