Lemon Garlic Creamy Lobster Linguine Recipe

Want to level up your pasta dinner game? Make this Lemon Garlic Creamy Lobster Linguine! This recipe is especially perfect for occasions such as a date night at home. I know the idea of making Lobster Linguine at home could sound a bit daunting, but trust me, it’s a lot easier than you might think. Using cooked whole lobster, simply flash-grill the lobster with smoky bbq garlic butter, then make the creamy lemon pasta and you’ll have this luxurious dish ready on the table in no time. Even with raw lobster, it’s not that much of an extra effort, to be honest.

If you live in the UK, Waitrose offers frozen Canadian whole lobsters and they are of pretty decent quality. You can opt for just lobster tails as well if you like, which are probably easier and cleaner to eat than a whole lobster. If you’re using cooked lobster, simply whip up a compound butter to spread over the lobster and flash-grill it for extra flavour. If you’re cooking the lobster/lobster tails from raw, coat the lobster with compound butter for grilling and bast it throughout. As for the pasta, the creamy lemon pasta is easy to make and is similar to many of my cream-based pasta recipes.

How to make Creamy Lobster Linguine

Ingredients:

• Whole Lobster – I used cooked whole lobster
• Butter, Garlic, Salt, Black Pepper, Smoky BBQ Seasoning, Parsley– for making the compound butter
• Linguine Pasta
• Garlic, Shallots – the aromatics
• Red Chilli Flakes – optional
• Salt, Black Pepper – for seasoning
• Chicken Broth – to deglaze the pan
• Double Cream
• Reserved Pasta Water – starchy water reserved from cooking the pasta. For flavouring, thickening, and binding the creamy pasta sauce
• Butter – for giving the pasta a luxurious silky richness
• Lemon Zest, Lemon Juice
• Italian Hard Cheese – vegetarian substitute of Parmesan
• Fresh Parsley Leaves – for garnish

Recipe notes

Prepping the lobster

• Start with twisting the claws off the lobster. It should come off fairly easily. Then crack the shell of the claws using a lobster cracker or a food hammer (or using the butt of a knife). Cracking the shell makes it much easier to eat when serving. You don’t need to remove the meat out of the shell.
• For the lobster body, use a sharp knife to split the lobster in halves.
• You can play around with different ingredients for the compound butter. Garlic is a must and goes exceptionally well with the lobster. We like a little smoky touch and used smoky BBQ seasoning (can be substituted with paprika and chilli powder). Try a more herby combo, or add lemon zest for a zingy touch – get as creative as you want! Spread it all over the lobster to grill. Any leftover compound butter would be fabulous as extra sauce for serving!
• Lobster is a delicate meat and you don’t want to overcook it. If your lobster is already cooked, e.g. using the Waitrose cooked frozen Canadian lobster like I did, only flash-grill the lobster for extra flavour.
• If cooking from raw, place the lobster on the grill flesh-down and cook on high heat for a few minutes until slightly charred. Then flip the lobster around and keep basting with the compound butter. Your lobster is ready when the flesh has turned opague and is slightly firm to the touch.

Making the pasta

• Reserving pasta water is key to pretty much any pasta recipes. This is very important for both flavouring, thickening and binding the sauce. In terms of flavouring, the pasta water lends a salty flavour edge to the sauce. The starchy nature of the pasta water helps to thicken up the sauce and bind the sauce with the pasta. You’d want to pasta to be properly coated with the sauce, not separated. It’s the secret to making restaurant-quality pasta dishes.
• When cooking the pasta, make sure you are seasoning the water generously with salt. The Italians would say it should be ‘as salty as the ocean’ and they are kind of right! Salting the water helps to elevate the flavours of the pasta from inside out. It will be very hard to over-salt it so just throw it into the pot. A general rule for reference would be 1½ -2 tbsp of kosher/sea salt for every 500g of pasta.
• The shallots can be substituted with onions instead. Shallots tend to lend a sweeter flavour which I personally prefer more and think it goes particularly well with the natural sweetness from the lobster.
• Deglazing the pan with broth helps to maximise all the flavours from the aromatics. White wine is the traditional choice but we will be keeping it halal and alcohol-free here. Using just water would not help add flavours so make sure you are using broth of your choice. We normally use chicken broth. The liquid should be reduced almost by half before proceeding to add cream.
• A little touch of butter towards the end helps to add the luxurious silky richness to the cream sauce. The emulsification also helps to bind the sauce to the pasta.

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