Lobster with Black Bean Sauce
When I was a kid my parents used to take us out to the local Chinese place in Westport, CT and order what, at the time, was the most amazingly wonderful meal to me -- lobster with black bean sauce. I do a ton of home cooking but never got around to tackling this probably very simple dish.
Does anyone have a recipe I could try out, or some guidance on proportions of ingredients?
There are a few recipes floating around the web, but I'd prefer trying something the CH community would recommend.
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The response isn't a bad recipe. But most restaurants when making lobster will first coat with starch (cornstarch, potato starch, or whatever), then fry for about 3-5 minutes first. This provides a more even cook. Then get the wok, do the aromatics, add the lobster, wine, and chicken stock/other sauce. stir-fry for a bit, and then serve.
What I do at home, I do a pure stir-fry. I'm more of a ginger-scallion type of lobster lover. But it's the same basic principles. What I usually do, is I usually add the arms and claws in first, stir-fry a good 4 minutes, before adding the rest of the lobster meat. Just so you don't have overcooked tails, or raw claws.
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re: Rokur
The starch coating doesn't really make much sense to me since you're essentially coating the shell encased meat. That just seems strange. If you're going to do that, shouldn't you remove the meat first? Then the meat will have a nice crispy edge (not sure if that's really desirable here).
What's the best widely available black bean product? I could only find KAME black bean sauce at the grocery store. What do restaurants use?
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re: powermd
It's not a very thick coating, and it doesn't really form a crust or anything. It's a way to keep meat from overcooking. There's starch in many meats that are chinese. Even beed with broccli is made with cornstarch coating on the beef. It's not a crust, i apologize if it's confusing.
Also, there is a difference in black bean sauce, and black beans. There are dried fermented black beans in asian grocers. I don't remember the brand I have, but the flavors are pretty standard. If you use the sauce, don't just replace the black beans with sauce, as the sauce may have had sugar or other things added to it. To make sure you don't overseason your recipe, I'd recommend holding off on any salt, pepper, sugar, soy sauce, or anything in the recipe until after you've added the sauce and you taste it.
Best of luck to you!
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First have your ingredients ready...
Cut up Main Lobster
Vegetable Oil/Peanut Oil
Sherry
Chopped Garlic
Chopped Ginger
Fermented Black Beans
Ground Pork
Chicken Stock
Light Soy Sauce, Salt and a dash of Ground White Pepper
Corn Starch to Thicken
Scrambled Egg...both yolk and whites
Garnished with Thin Sliced Scallions
Sesame Oil (Optional )
Fish Sauce ( Optional )Heat your Wok
Add Oil
Add Garlic & Ginger until opaque
Add Fermented Black Beans
Add Ground Pork ( Optional ) and brown
add Lobster
Add Sherry
Add Chicken Chicken Stock
Season With Light Soy Sauce, Salt and White Pepper (Fish Sauce Optional
Cover
Simmer until Lobster is barely cooked
Thicken with Corn Starch Slurry ( Optional )
Add Scrambled Egg ( Optional )
Garnish with Scallions
Drizzle Sesame Oil ( Optional )
