wedding dinner in tuscany: lobster linguine!

A wedding dinner is a serious thing here in Italy 🙂

That’s why I was very excited when we, Cuoche in Vacanza (Chef on your holiday), were commissioned to prepare this event for 2 young newlyweds.

The location that they chose was fabulous and perfect for a wedding dinner in Tuscany: a hill farmhouse with a wonderful view of the Gulf of Talamone, in the south of Tuscany.

It was a very intimate wedding dinner: 13 guests, very close relatives, and friends.

I will never forget that day when we:

left early in the morning
drove for 2 and 1/2 hours by car
did the shopping at Porto Santo Stefano, directly from a fisherman. This last one had set up a counter with fresh fish and in the meantime was adjusting some holes in his fishing nets.
Arrived at the cottage and started to work.

After talking with the spouses we arranged a few things about the tables and the equipment. Then we took some pictures and after lunch, we started

Our real job: give the best as a private chef.

To prepare all the food for a wedding dinner on the spot takes time and patience.

We come directly to your home and start cooking from scratch, obviously, nothing is precooked.

The frantic rhythms of certain restaurants do not do for us.

In this regard we prefer to prepare simple meals, but with extra fresh ingredients.

Among the many delicacies, we bought some amazing local lobsters. The spouses wanted the lobsters to be the protagonists of the wedding dinner, perhaps as an abundant seasoning for a first pasta dish.

In this regard you know that there are many types of lobster and there are several ways to cook it:

Boiling
Broiling and Baking
Steaming
Grilling

Then there’s the following way, no competition with the others, guaranteed!

Well, I love to prepare it directly in the frying pan, so that it sprinkles all of its aromas without losing it in the water.

It’s an unusual method, other than the usual dive into the water. Anyway, I learned this way to cook lobster not from a colleague chef, but from a fisherman friend, in Posillipo (South of Italy, near Napoli).

Furthermore, reading the recipe you’ll learn making the popular “FUMETTO”: an Italian very tasteful broth made with shells/carapace.

In fact, who better than a fisherman could teach me this method?

The flavor that comes out with this kind of cooking is something magical as well as exquisite.

It’s beautiful when what you eat, as well as you like it, surprises you beyond expectations. This is exactly what you’re going to feel if preparing the recipe below.

wedding dinner in tuscany with cuocheinvacanza (chefs on holiday) and a perfect lobster recipe

paccheri pasta and lobster

That’s why I cooked lobster in my friend’s way so many times, including the Last Supper of the Year.

Sometimes with a long type of pasta, such as the linguine, other times with a short one, such as paccheri.

So I immediately thought of cooking fresh lobsters for the newlywed’s wedding dinner.

Needless to say that the wedding dinner was perfect and in fact, lobsters with linguine were the protagonists of the “banquet”.

Suggestions and advice that maybe you do not know.

The lobster can be bought:

Frozen (but it does not have much flavor)
Fresh. And fresh means ALIVE, directly taken from the aquarium.

If you do not like being the direct protagonists of the killing of a living lobster, here are two important tips that I was happy to follow:

put it for about an hour in the fridge to stun it
then place it in the freezer for at least 2 hours (and for up to 2 days)

It will be sufficient to let it thaw for about an hour before cooking.

This is in my opinion the best tomato (passata) sauce to cook with lobster; it’s consistent, has the right texture:

LINGUINE pasta and lobster

Lobster Linguine

Recipe by Erika Elia (CuocheinVacanza.com)

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Total time: 50 minutes
Serves: 4

Ingredients

2 lobsters (1 1/2 pound each), 600gr each; Total: 3 pounds, 1,2 Kg
2 shallots
1 garlic clove
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (big pan)
3 tbsp extra virgin oil (small pan)
1 can tomato pulp (I use Mutti)
1 small glass brandy
half glass dry white wine
1 red hot pepper
1 sprig of thyme
4 leaves of basil
1 bunch of fresh parsley
to taste salt

Instructions

Wash the lobster, cut it in half with poultry shears, and gently extract the central pulp
put the pulp in a bowl
Throw the small sandbag
take off the claws, the walking legs, and the head (from now I’ll simply call these “shells”)
crack them over a bowl helping you with a nutcracker
this procedure helps the pulp to release all the tasty liquids
pour in a pan the oil and sauté 1 chopped shallot together with all the shells
flip in the pan for about 1 minute and deglaze with the dry white wine
Add 1 glass of water, red pepper, thyme, basil, and a pinch of salt. In this way, you’re preparing the popular “FUMETTO”.
Let it boil and turn down the heat
let it cook for about 15 minutes, adding one more glass of water.
in a small pan pour 3 tbsp of oil and fry the chopped garlic with the remaining shallot
add the lobster pulp and some salt, immediately sprinkle with brandy and “flambé”
After browning the pulp, pour the “fumetto” (the broth) into the pan, straining it through a sieve.
cut the pulp into 8 pieces and keep warm the shells, and the pulp in a bowl.
Add the tomato sauce to the fumetto and let it cook medium heat until the liquid is absorbed and we obtained a sauce.
Cook the linguine in boiling salted water (3 liters min.) “al dente”. Once drained pour them in the pan (turn off the fire when the sauce is boiling) and let them take the flavor for a few moments.
Serve the linguine in a soup plate with the shells and 2 pieces of pulp for each person.
Sprinkle with fresh parsley