Queen of the rocks leftovers

 
From the big dinner the other day there were some leftovers from the spiny lobster. It was a glorious 1,6 kilos female that was caught the same morning. Another time, I will write about these creatures more in detail and how to select them. I was pondering what to do with it. Other leftovers included some avocados and peaches. Pascal Barbot of l’Astrance’s crab-avocado ravioli came to mind as a potential preparation to play with.

It is a dish that for me bears the traits of a great chef; simply marriage of a few flavors displaying their true flavors that intermingle to create a result greater than the components. Pascal uses crab, avocado, almond oil and lemon. So here I was with spiny lobster avocado and unsweetened almond purée. Oh, yes there was also the coral-béarnaise, we could call it, made from the coral, clarified butter some vegetable juice, gelatin and acidity. So I did an almond mayonnaise, basically by blending some almond purée and water into a classic mayonnaise done with colza oil, egg yolk and Orléans mustard. It was creamy in texture so that it would just coat the morsels of spiny lobster. I put a big spoonful of mayonnaise coated lobster pieces in the middle of the plate, covered them with avocado sliced with a mandolin and sprinkled with salt, a few drops of lemon and peach juliennes and accompanied the “ravioli” with some drops of the coral-vinaigrette. The result was good. Almonds, avocado and crustaceans are great flavors together. The peach has its place there too. Was it as good as Barbot’s original? No, although perhaps not quite a bad caricature of a good dish either.