chive

reading:  Abide With Me by Elizabeth Strout
making:  new lobster salad recipe - with apple, celery fennel & mint + a bit of pickled cucumber and a slightly more intense mayo than last week - more smokiness!

Lobster Salad with Apple, Celery & Garden Herbs
(my best effort yet!)

Lobster, picked and chopped.
Rocket
Half an apple, peeled and finely diced
Slice the other half, keep all apple in cold water and lemon juice until needed
4 inches of celery, finely diced
1 spring onion, finely sliced on the diagonal
Half a red chilli finely sliced
2 or 3 inches of cucumber, shredded
Pickling vinegar
Smoked salt to add to the Lemon, smoked garlic and mint mayo of last week
Garden herbs:  chives, fennel fronds, mint, lemon balm
Salt & pepper

Make the mayonnaise with the added smoked salt & 3 cloves of smoked garlic instead of 2.

Use a potato peeler to shred the cucumber and soak in the pickling vinegar along with half a finely sliced red chilli and half the spring onion - add a few twists of black pepper too.

Put some rocket on the plate, add the finely diced apple, celery, spring onion which has been marinading in lemon juice & olive oil, and then put your lobster on top.  Add some apple slices - the freshness of this is very good.

Decorate with herbs, and it really is fabulous.  It would work just as well with white crab meat too.

The cucumber cuts the richness of the lobster and the fennel fronds give it a different flavour - just tear a bit off to eat with every other mouthful.