Anniversary Colossal Lobster Tails with Lemon Garlic Pasta

My other half and I have a tradition of some kind of indulgent meal for our anniversary. Most of the time that involves seafood in Cape Town, South Africa. Courtesy of the pandemic, this year we haven’t been able to get to Cape Town let alone into a restaurant – so we took on the task of creating our anniversary worthy meal ourselves. We were lucky enough to score some colossal lobster tails – so we decided to get grilling.

Ingredients:

For the tails:

3-5 cloves of garlic
4 Colossal Lobster Tails
Black Pepper ( freshly ground to taste )
1 1/2 – 2 Lemons
1 bunch parsley
1 stick of butter
6 tablespoons of olive oil

Preparation of the Tails for Grilling

So these tails were pretty hefty. That meant we needed to do some proper planning so we could grill them , impart great flavor but still maintain the moisture needed. Believe it or not, lobster is NOT my favorite shellfish. It tastes great but it often lacks the moisture retention of langoustines ( my favorite) . However, with careful planning – I’m able to make a grilled lobster that does justice. I added this pic below just to give perspective on the size of these colossal lobster tails.

Given their size – we decided to halve the tails. We made sure that we didn’t split them completely. They were split down to the tail – so they could stay together. I did this for 2 reasons. One is so that when I grill them – the shell can protect them from the direct heat – helping them cook in the shell. The butter marinade I used also helped with that – since the gaps in the shell were filled with the marinade too.

It actually took a bit of work to get through the tails with my cleaver

As for the marinade – this is the moment where I sort of get on my high horse about seasoning seafood. I firmly believe that shellfish should stand on their own. I don’t believe in overpowering lobster tails with heavy spices. I feel like if you taste more spice than lobster – you’re selling yourself short. Now that’s just my humble opinion – but I’m sticking to it!

That said, I chose to do a marinade of melted butter , olive oil, diced parsley , black pepper, garlic, lemon juice, and salt. I don’t let them sit for longer than an hour – and I leave some of the marinade aside to baste while grilling.

This is the parsley , olive oil, salt , black pepper and garlic

Lemon garlic pasta is a staple in my house – so it made sense to put this on the side. I made some linguini , basically tossed it in a butter , olive oil , garlic, black pepper and lemon juice mix. It’s tossed with parsley. Then I serve it with red pepper flakes and parmesan cheese. Truthfully the ratios of the ingredients don’t matter here – you can do it to taste. If you want to know how to do the pasta in detail – it’s basically this without the shrimp.