Lobster Linguini - Preparing Vegetables and Caramelizing Fennel

Hector Playuk: Hi! My name is Hector Playuk, the Executive Chef for Jacks Bar & Restaurant. I am going to show you how to cut the vegetables, the tomatoes, the fennel, the asparagus to make linguini lobster with spicy brandy sauce. We have got one tomato, usually I use five by six, nice and firm. To begin with, I am going to show you how to make it for one dish. We place the tomato, we are going to dice in equal pieces, if it is possible. Be careful, you are using sharper knife, stay away from the edge of the tomato. Cut the tomatoes in to equal pieces if possible, you have got the fennel, take the fennel, top part out, put in to water when you are boiling the water for the lobster. Take the bottom one, use for the stock. Cut the fennel in half, very important, be careful. Using sharper knife, stay away from sharpened knife. I am going to use probably around two ounces of each, fennel and tomato. We have got the asparagus, we are going to cut the tips of the asparagus. Little piece, we cut that. We can use that to make a stock. There we have got one by one cut in diagonal, the asparagus. Try to cut equally, be careful because you are using a sharp knife. For this dish, Ill use probably around three ounces of fresh asparagus,, to make linguini lobster with the spicy brandy sauce. Then, last part we have got to caramelize the fennel. I would say, probably four asparagus would be good for the dish. We are going to caramelize the fennel. .

For caramelizing the fennel, we are going to need unsalted butter, regular sugar and the fennel already diced. Pre-heat the pan. I would prefer to use nonstick pan, so the vegetables do not stick to the pan. Its very important, that process because when you are going to saut all the ingredients together, you dont want to get all the flavor of the burnt pan on the pasta.

Thats the tips. I am going to place with the hand little bit of butter, , two pinch of sugar, melt it together very nicely and then we are going to place the fennel inside of the pan. While I do that process, we are going to saut for about seven eight minute to get nice smooth color in the high flame. This is how you cut the ingredients to do the linguini lobster and then this is how you caramelize the fennel.