Grilled Curried Lobster: Summertime Goodness

One day, when we've got enough time, I'll tell you the story of the best lobster ever, an epic tale of the quest to find grilled lobster in Barbuda. But today, we don't have that kind of time. Seriously.

I will tell you, however, that the idea of grilled lobster sounds great, but the execution is often lacking. We've had it a few times in the Caribbean, and it was usually too dry and lacking in flavor. The first time I made it, I followed the advice of several cookbooks and boiled the lobster until it was almost done before placing it on the grill. And I didn't make it again for years.

This weekend, however, my sister asked me to grill some lobster. Who am I to say no to my little sister?

Grilled Curried Lobster

What You Need:

4 Lobster tails (ours were 4 ounces)

3 limes

2 1/2 tsp green curry

1 tsp ground ginger

1 jicama

1 large avocado

1 mango

1/2 cup cilantro

5 roma tomatoes

1 clove garlic

1 red boiler onion

Salt

Olive oil

1 lemon

What to do with it:

Squeeze 2 1/2 limes: you should end up with about 1/2 cup of juice

Add 1 tbsp olive oil, the ginger, 2 tsp green curry and about 1/2 tsp salt. Now you have the marinade for the lobster.

Start your charcoal.

Peel and seed the tomatoes, and chop them.

Finely chop the onion and garlic.

Add this, 1/4 cup of the marinade, 1 tsp olive oil, 1/8 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp curry and the juice from the final 1/2 lime in a sauce pan on medium heat. Cook until the tomatoes are broken down, about 15 minutes. Now you have a marinara. Set this aside to cool.

While this is cooking, cut the underside of the tail lengthwise. Now spread the shell along the cut, and spoon in about 3 tsp of your marinade.

Prepare your mango and jicama by chopping (you want all the mango, and about 1 1/2 to 2 cups jicama). Slice the avocado and rub lightly with lemon juice (this keeps the avocado from turning brown). Tear up the cilantro leaves.

Your charcoal should be ready now. Place the tails on the grill, hard side down, for 3 1/2 minutes. Flip, and cook another 3 minutes. (You may need a little more time, depending on how much your tails weigh.)

Remove the tails, and plate the jicama, mango, avocado and cilantro (in that order). Ladle some marinade down the center of this. Take a butcher knife and use it to split the tails completely in half, then place them on the plate.

Serve with a weissbier. We used Weihenstephaner Vitus (a weizenbock).

(We also tried a pinot grigio, but the marinara contrasted too much with it.)