Recipe: Lobster mango layer salad - summer love!

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To cook for Mother's Day, I ordered a "Mother's Day package" from an online seafood/meat store Ocean Three. It came with a dozen of Australian Coffin Bay oysters, 2 US sirloins, 2 US ribeyes, and 2 cooked lobsters. Beef steak is a standard business so all I concerned were the cooked lobsters. So, I came up with a delicious Lobster Mango Salad and here it was my recipe:

Lobster Mango Salad (serves 4)

Ingredients:

2 lobsters (cooked in whole and chilled)
4 mangoes (diced)
1 cucumber (diced)
1 red bell pepper (diced)
1/2 potato (as round bodied as possible- cooked and chilled)
1/4 red onion (optional - diced)
Approx.45g Camembert cheese (optional)
A handful of parsley (chopped)
A shake of dried basil (optional) 
1 teaspoon of lemon zest
Approx. 35ml olive oil
2 lemons (juice)
2 limes (juice)
Salt & pepper for seasoning

Special equipments:

Food processor (blender)

Food shaper (for plating - could DIY)

Method:

1. Cook the whole lobsters and potato, set aside for cooling, then refrigerate for later use

2. Dice and chop the indicated ingredients above (put them in separate bowls, refrigerate when done with cutting)
3. Take out around 1 mango's dices, put in the food processor, then add in olive oil, 1/2 lemon's juice, lemon zest, 1 lime's juice, some chopped parsley, basil, salt & pepper --> blend till smooth!

4. Take out the meat from the lobsters - tear off head first, pull out claws, use scissors to cut along the tummy part to help pull off the body&tail's meat, crack the claws and carefully take out the beautiful claw shaped meat. Cut the body into smaller pieces, leave the claws in whole
5. Season the diced ingredients with lemon & lime juice, salt& pepper; mix in some chopped parsley into the cucumber dices



6. Plating time! Lay out your plates in line, put a shaper on each plate - we will do 4 plates in the same time
7. Peel the skin off your potato, slice out 4 50mm-thick pieces from the fattest part. Place one slice in each plate as a bottom center-piece
8. Layer the dices one on top of another (the sequence is up to you - just avoid using mango at the bottom as they are too slippery to slide off by the weight on top)
9. Give a gentle press after each layer to fit into shape
10. Drop a tablespoon of smooth mango coulee (the blended mixture) on top after layering



11. Place a few pieces of lobster meat on the mango coulee
12. Cut a piece of Camembert on, then top with lobster claw meat
13. Remove the food shaper
Voila!

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Things to note:

* Your plating efficiency depends on how many shapers and table space you have - the more the faster

* The dices have to be small so that they could fit tighter together inside the shaper

* There are so many variations with this dish - try to replace lobster by shrimp, or add a little red onion to spice up the red bell pepper

* To DIY food shaper, make a cardboard ring of your desired diameter of about 2.5 inches thick, covered smoothly with aluminum foil/ plastic wrap

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Party idea:

Lobster mango salad is a lovely treat for summer - for the eyes and the taste buds. It's pretty manageable to make this delicious and healthy salad for your group of friends as an afternoon treat!

Bon appetit!

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