I wanted to make a lobster risotto. (Actually, I wanted to make that or learn how to butter poach a lobster; I gave Pd the choice and he chose the risotto.) I've made my go-to mushroom cauliflower risotto a lot this winter, and I've gotten very comfortable with the ins-and-outs of it, so I thought it was time to vary it a little.
It was the first time I'd ever made lobster (or pieces thereof), actually. I've never been entirely comfortable with cooking live lobsters — not so much the slow death bit (I figure they're somewhat like frogs; there's a vague awareness of is it getting hotter in here?, and then merciful coma and death), but — what if they crawl out of the sink — or the pot, for that matter — and get away? And someone told me once that you're supposed to pierce the head or the bladder or something before you put it into the pot, but — how do you tell where that is? (Granted: it would probably help to remember the specific organ in question, as I'm fairly sure the head and the bladder are not in the same place.) And anyway, I'm not comfortable with that, either; killing via water is one thing, but sticking a sharp object lengthwise through a still-living thing is something else.
I know that there's a philosophy that one shouldn't eat what one isn't comfortable killing. I say hogwash. I have no illusions that the animals we eat have the same cute-puppy eyes as the animals we don't — someone ate my adopted pet bunny when I was five years old; when this happens and the adults treat it as an unfortunate oversight, you tend to lose that particular illusion rather quickly — but I'm kind of a klutz and I think it would be best for both me and the animal that I not be involved in its demise.
All that being said, the risotto was very good, and I did not have to kill anything that wasn't already dead — except the chives, and they had it coming.
Next: more renovations! Yay!
No comments:
Post a Comment