A little fancy, a little indulgent, but hey we aren’t splashing out on takeaways at the moment so as a treat once a month, we are making something special and to replicate some of our restaurant favourites : step forward the most delicious and best Lobster Mac n’ Cheese recipe you may ever find.

The first time I had this was in the Hawksmoor in London (I miss), and it’s something I’ve cooked up just a few times since, with once being recently. It’s warming, it’s special, it’s something that can be enjoyed for a couple of days/nights and can either be your main dish or a side. WARNING : This is a bit of a fiddly recipe, it has a few elements, takes a bit of time so best prepared when you have an hour of time, a glass of white wine and some cheesy Absolute music station playing in the background.

In normal times, I would suggest this more as a ‘winter warmer’ type dish, but hey……I’ve been eating chocolate cake for breakfast and crunchy nut cornflakes for dinner at the moment so let’s not have too many food rules. Fresh lobster is of course best, but hard to come by at the moment, so frozen will do, just make sure you defrost it first. You can also replace the lobster for crab.

Lobster Mac n’ Cheese Recipe (serves 4-6)

2 x lobster tails

Olive Oil

1 Onion

2 sticks of celery

Cayenne Pepper (pink of)

1 Tablespoon Tomato Puree

1 litre milk

400g Macaroni

50g Butter

150ml White Wine

50g Plain Flour

1 tsp mustard

160g Cheddar

Parmesan for topping (or more cheddar!)

Breadcrumbs

Dried Onion Flakes (an extra if you have!)

M E T H O D

1. Oven on at 180. Prepare your lobster. If frozen, ensure it’s defrosted properly (I put in fridge the night before). If you manage to get fresh, then cook, de-shell and chop up the meat into nice and generous bite-size chunks, including the claw meat. Keep the shells!

2. Heat a splash of olive oil in a frying pan, add the chopped onion, chopped celery with a large pinch of salt. Fry for 4-5 minutes then add in the lobster shells. Fry for another 3 minutes.

3. Add in the cayenne pepper and tomato puree and stir it around, ensuring everything is mixed in nicely.

4. Add in your milk and stir until the milk just starts to simmer (2 minutes or so) and then remove from heat and set pan aside for at leat half an hour for all of those ingredients to infuse nicely.

5. Boil the macaroni in a saucepan so it’s a little underdone – it’ll cook more in the oven!

6. Strain the milk from the frying pan with the onion/celery/shell – discard everything except the mil which should now be orange/red in colour.

7. Add the butter into a saucepan and melt, then add the white wine and cook for 5 minutes until reduced by half. Add in the flour – this is now your ‘roux’ starting.

8. Add in your milk, bit by bit to create your sauce (the same as making a white sauce). It should be creamy looking, orange in colour.

10. Add in your lobster meat, cheddar cheese, mustard and stir well.Season to taste. I like a lot of black and white pepper.

11. Incorporate the sauce with you macaroni and put into a large oven dish. Finish with a hefty sprinkling of parmesan (or cheddar……or even a mix of both and a touch of mozzarella would be amazing!), a sprinkling of those crispy onions, and a sprinkling of dried breadcrumbs. You will have a nice combination of cheesy and crunch

12. Bake in the oven until golden and bubbling, around 20 minutes. Enjoy!

The best lobster mac and cheese recipe