Jean-Philippe Blondet’s “Sauté gourmand” of lobster, truffled chicken quenelles and homemade pasta

Ingredients
For the cream sauce (10 portions):

• 1L single cream
• 175g mascarpone
• 75g truffle jus (from canned black truffles)
• 5g salt
• 1g ground white pepper

For the lobster sauce (8 portions):

• 1L lobster stock (water can be used when making stock for the first time)
• 1/2 bulb fennel
• 3 lobster heads and legs
• 1 tomato
• 1 banana shallot
• 1tsp tomato paste
• 50ml brandy
• 300g butter, cubed
• 150ml olive oil
• 3 basil stems
• 1/4 lemon

For the Semolina pasta (6 portions with 3 pieces in a portion):

• 360g Semolina
• 160g whole egg

For the chicken quenelles (10 portions):

• 160g chicken breast (skinned and deboned)
• 100g single cream
• 7g black truffle (finely chopped)
• 1.5g salt
• 2g truffle jus (from canned black truffles)

For the lobster medallions (6 portions):

• 3 live lobsters (500-600g)
• 150ml dry white wine
• 2 stalks dried fennel
• 10 whole black peppercorns
• 1 clove garlic
• 5L water
• 50g salt

For the Eryngii mushrooms:

• 4-5 large Eryngii mushrooms (also known as King Oyster mushrooms)
• olive oil (enough to cover the mushrooms)

Method

For the cream sauce:

1. In a pan over high heat, reduce 1L of single cream by half.
2. Once reduced and slightly cooled, combine with the marscapone, truffle jus, salt and white pepper.

For the lobster sauce:

1. Chop the lobster heads in half (lengthwise), and add these to a hot cocotte with olive oil, searing gently until the heads are golden on both sides.
2. Add the small cubes of butter and roast gently. Add the sliced vegetables (fennel, tomato and banana shallot), and sweat this in the butter without browning.
3. Deglaze with brandy and add the tomato paste. Cook for a few minutes to reduce the acidity and then cover with lobster stock/water.
4. Once the liquid comes to a boil, lower the heat to a simmer and cook for 45 minutes, skimming constantly.
5. Remove the pot from the heat and infuse with the basil and lemon for 20 minutes covered.
6. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve into a clean pan and reduce if necessary.
7. Finish the strained lobster base with additional lemon juice if necessary.
8. Option: To create a stock for future use, keep the strained trimmings and add these back to the cocotte and cover with water. Bring this to a boil for 30 minutes, and strain.

For the Semolina pasta:

1. Combine the ingredients in a large bowl, and knead until the dough comes together and is thoroughly incorporated.
2. Wrap the dough in plastic and allow to rest in the fridge for 1 hour.
3. After the dough has rested, remove this from the plastic wrap and using a pasta machine, roll out the dough until it is 1mm thick.
4. Lay out the pasta sheets, and cut the pasta with a 6cm round cutter.
5. With a small knife cut off 7mm of one side (the circle will now have one flat side)
6. Using a wooden peg 1.5cm in diameter, gently roll the rounded side of the pasta towards the cut edge.
7. Once the edges meet, lightly press down on the peg to secure the dough in place. The piece of pasta should look like a tube with a rounded flap coming off of it.
8. Set the peg with the pasta aside to dry.
9. When the pasta is dry, carefully remove from the peg through tapping actions and lay on the flap-side down.

For the chicken quenelles:

1. Roughly cut the chicken breast into cubes.
2. Add the chicken to a food processor and blitz until the mixture is a smooth mass.
3. Press the blended chicken meat through a fine drum sieve into a large bowl, removing any sinews in the process.
4. Then, over a bowl of ice and with a spatula, work the chicken meat together with the cream, and truffle jus, adding this little by little. Check the consistency of the mixture as the quantity of cream needed may vary.
5. Season with salt, pepper and the finely chopped black truffle.
6. Keeping the bowl on ice, form the quenelles with a small spoon and poach them in chicken stock. Do not boil the liquid but instead keep the stock at 80/90˚C.
7. The cooking process is very quick, and the quenelles should take approximately 4-5 minutes to cook.
8. If retaining for later use, cool down the quenelles in iced water and keep them covered in the fridge until ready to serve.

For the lobster medallions:

1. In a large stock pot, combine the white wine, water, fennel, peppercorns, salt, and garlic and bring the liquid to a boil.
2. Prepare the lobster by removing the eggs (if they are female), the head and the legs, and keep these aside for later use.
3. Separate the claws from the tails keeping the lobsters in their shells. Devein the lobster, and insert a wooden stick into the tail to keep the lobster straight when cooking.
4. To the boiling pot, add the lobster tail (cooking time varies between 4-5 minutes), and the lobster claws (cooking time varies between 3-5 minutes).
5. Keep the eggs, head and shell to create the sauce.
6. Once done poaching, cool down the lobster tail in iced water before removing the shell.
7. To remove the shells from the claw meat – the lobster claws must be as hot as possible to avoid damaging the flesh when removing the shells.
8. Once the claw meat has been removed from the shell, cool this down in a chiller.
9. For service, slice the tail meat into “medallions” (give you 6-7 pieces per lobster) and keep the claw meat intact.
10. Reheat the pieces very gently in lobster butter. (The lobster butter is the retained fat from the lobster sauce, which is collected after it sets.)
11. 1 serving portion is 3 medallions of lobster tail, and 1 piece of claw meat.

For the Eryngii mushrooms:

1. In a high-sided pan, heat the olive oil to 80˚C and add the mushrooms.
2. Remove the pan from the heat, and leave the oil to cool down completely.
3. Once the oil and mushrooms have cooled, remove the mushrooms from the oil, and cut them into 6 equal sized pieces.
4. To serve, sauté the mushroom pieces in a pan with butter until golden.

Plating 

For 1 portion, you will require:

• 4 pieces Eryngii mushrooms
• 4 chicken quenelles
• 3 pieces Semolina pasta
• 30ml lobster jus
• 30ml truffle cream
• 3 slices fresh black truffle

Prior to plating the dish:

1. Reheat the quenelles in a little bit of chicken stock.
2. Warm the truffle-cream in a pan and season.
3. Sauté the Eryngii mushrooms in butter, and warm the lobster in the lobster butter.
4. Cook the pasta in salted water (3 pieces each) until almost cooked and finish cooking in the truffle-cream sauce.
5. Make sure the seasoning and the balance of truffle flavour is correct.

To plate the dish:

1. Dress the pasta on the plate with the truffle-cream strewn around.
2. Add the quenelles, lobster medallions, Eryngii mushrooms, some extra truffle-cream and lobster sauce.
3. Serve with a small jug of lobster sauce on the side.

Recipe courtesy of Jean-Philippe Blondet.