This Morning on CBC Weekend Morning - Grilled Lobster Tails and Vegetable Tajine

This morning I had the pleasure of presenting two recipes, as follows, for CBC's Weekend Morning Show with guest host Laurie Hoogstraten.

Grilled Lobster Tails with compound butter
6 small lobster tails *
Drizzle olive oil

1 cup softened butter
1 roasted red pepper
2 good pinches Saffron
1 pinch salt

Zest of grapefruit
Quick squeeze of grapefruit juice

Skin and seed roasted pepper. Blend together chopped pepper, butter, saffron and a pinch of salt. Drop onto a sheet of plastic wrap or waxed paper and shape into a roll. Chill until firm.

Cut lobster tails open on the soft side of the shell. Drizzle olive oil over tails. Heat BBQ to a high heat. Grill lobster tails until shell becomes quite red all over. Put a pat of the herbed butter on each tail. Zest the grapefruit over the tails and squeeze some of the juice of the grapefruit over all of the tails. Serve immediately.

For other prepared butters, try ripe mango, butter, lime and jalapeño flakes. Try flavours that you enjoy together or ripe locally grown fruit.

* Lobster tails in a variety of sizes from Nova Scotia are available at Gimli Fish at 596 Dufferin Ave., 625 Pembina Hwy and 1604 St. Mary's Rd.

Vegetable Tagine
2 red peppers
3-4 carrots
onions
1 head garlic cloves
1-2 Japanese eggplants (or 1 large globe eggplant)
1-2 yams
1/2 cup dates
1/2 cup olives
1/2 pickled lemon RIND ONLY
2-3 tbs olive oil
2-3 tbs Ras el Hanout
splash rose water
1 tbs turmeric
salt and pepper and some water

Thinly slice eggplant and salt if necessary. Seed and chop peppers into medium sized pieces. Peel and slice carrots. Slice onions into thin slices. Peel garlic and cut into large chunks if cloves are very large or keep whole if smaller sized. Peel and cube yams. Pit dates and olives if necessary. Remove lemon flesh from the peel and chop peel finely. Discard lemon flesh. Combine vegetables, dates, olives, lemon, olive oil , Ras el Hanout, rose water, turmeric, salt and pepper and about 1/4 cup of water in a large bowl. If you have salted the eggplant, rinse in cold water and squeeze out slices. Place vegetable mixture in a casserole dish or tajine. Cover and cook on stove top over medium heat, checking and stirring occasionally.

Spices and other ingredients for the Vegetable Tajine are available at Halal Meats and Specialty Foods on Maryland in Winnipeg, Dino's Grocery Mart on Notre Dame in Winnipeg, DeLuca's on Portage, Crampton's Market on Waverley and D.A. Niels on Berry.


Enjoy!