Lobster Baked Macaroni and Cheese
Good morning, y’all.
Juneteenth is upon us — and its celebration this year has new meaning.
A holiday to celebrate the end of slavery — over time it grew out of fashion. A neglected holiday. This was not something handed down through my experience. This was not something taught to me by those entrusted with my formal education.
In fact, the first time I heard the word Juneteenth was completely without context. Yet, my mind began to ring from the newness of this word, and spin with fanciful abstract notions of its possibilities.
This celebration has a different aura this year.
JunePeaches.com is a place that welcomes everyone — no matter who, which, how, what, or why you got here. Meeting with all those similarly various experiences in the past has informed the technicolor that is my present. I ask my readers to reflect back to the abstractions they may have had festering in mind when they first encountered the term systemic racism.
In my kitchen lives a potted African Violet. I feel no one ever really assumed any custody or ownership of it. It just stays in the kitchen on the table.
As far as I know, it is an ancient plant, here before I was – and perhaps even the dinosaurs. In that same spot. In the same planter. Undoubtably root-bound after all these years. Its cachepot rusted on the inside.
Neglected, its only essential need fulfilled is sunlight. Starved of fertilizer and regular watering, it probably assumes that an exclamation of “Oh shit!” is a colorful variant of ‘bon appetit.’
Nevertheless, it still has the nerve to bloom. Despite — or inspite of — the consistent neglect and mistreatment it still celebrates in several flushes of purple blooms a year. More than I would think it had any right to. And each successive spray sporting more purple spangle than the prior. Holding its buds high in a profusion.
2020 has brought use a year of so. much. So. many. One. after. the. other.
Contrary to all the negativity that is 2020, conversations are pushing the boulder of progress ever so slightly forward. It moves by the power of a voice, a march, a shout, a yell, a protest, a brick, a fist held powerfully in the air. All so that it may no longer suffer the move from the wails of a mother.
This celebration takes on new importance this year.
The Cookout will continue as planned (along side the televised Revolution)! And with times being what they are, we could all use some comfort food. Baked macaroni and cheese is one of my favorites. Trained in the traditions of The Grands, it was a moment of considerable pride when I bested my grandmother’s famous baked mac and cheese. No cheese sauce or breadcrumbs. Just like this — minus the lobster and onions. Completely different cheeses. And she used whole milk.
So we have butter, pasta, and a method in common. Nevertheless, the whole of it all still bubbles in the legacy of that tradition.
Lobster Baked Macaroni and Cheese
Ingredients
- 1 lb uncooked pasta
- 2 1 – 1½ lb live lobsters
- salted water for boiling
- 2 Tbsp butter
- 1 yellow onion diced
- ½ cup butter melted
- 4 oz extra sharp cheddar shredded
- 4 oz fontina shredded
- 4 oz gouda shredded
- 4 oz gruyere shredded
- 4 oz provolone shredded
- 2.5 oz asiago shredded
- salt and black pepper to taste
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 3 eggs beaten
- 1 tbsp butter for coating
- 3 Tbsp seasoned panko (optional)
- 2 Tbsp parmesan grated (optional)
Instructions
- In a large pot, bring a pot of salted water to boil. Add pasta and lobster, cooking the lobster until done — 7 – 9 minutes — and the pasta according to the packaging for al dente. Drain pasta, reserve to mixing bowl. Meanwhile, shell the lobster meat; reserve the whole crusher claw for garnish and chop the remaining meat roughly. Set aside.
- Preheat oven to 375º.
- In a skillet, heat butter over medium. Sauté diced onion until slightly softened and edges are translucent. Add butter and onion to mixing bowl with pasta, add melted butter and stir to coat thoroughly. Combine shredded cheese, salt and pepper, and heavy cream. Adjust seasoning, then mix in beaten eggs. Fold in chopped lobster.
- (Optional: for a hidden crunch and texture) Butter a 9 x 13 baking dish. In a small bowl combine panko and parmesan; then add to baking dish and rotate to coat. Bake for 10 minutes. Let cool.
- Gently spoon pasta mixture into (toasted baking dish) and garnish top with crusher claw meat. Bake for 20 – 25 minutes until cheeses are bubbling.
Notes
June
The Curiosity of Dessert
