When Los Angeles-based chef traveled to the Big Island to open up a pop-up restaurant, he got some help gathering ingredients from a few surfers who know the surrounding waters well. , , and ventured out with Lefebbvre to catch seafood. Healey, who has been fishing since he was three, dove into the water with a speargun and did most of the work. Over the course of the trip, he collected everything from Hawaiian blue-green snapper to spiny lobster to opihi.
Lefebvre has opened since 2007. Typically, the travels to a new location, looks for a business where he can use existing facilities at off hours (for example, a bakery), and then searches out local ingredients. Healey was happy to help with the sourcing. “These are all things that are very close to my heart,” said the big-wave surfer. “It's things that I've been eating since I was a little kid.”
You can watch the surfers and Lefebvre go to work in the video above, and then cook up the chef's chimney spiny lobster with pineapple and mint using the recipe below. For more recipes, check out after 12 P.M. PST on Tuesday.
CHIMNEY SPINY LOBSTER, ROASTED PINEAPPLE, MINT (Serves 4)
LOBSTER
2 1½- to 2-pound live lobster
¼ pound unsalted
butter
2 tablespoons
fleur de sel
2 paper chimney
Preheat the oven
to 350 degrees F.
Bring a large pot
of water to boil and plunge the lobster head first. Cook until the lobster is
bright red, about 2 minutes. Using tongs remove the lobster and hold under cold
running water until cool to touch.
Pat dry with paper towels.
Using a knife tip
pierce a hole into each lobster head, and add the chimney.
Place the butter
(chopped into small pieces) and the fleur de sel in a sauté pan and place the
two lobsters on top. Put the pan in the oven at 350 f.
Cook for 10
minutes, every two minutes add the melted butter from the pan into the chimney.
Remove from oven. Cut lobster tail using a large sharp knife,
remove the shell, and cut each lobster tail lengthwise in 2 pieces. Return the
lobster tails to the pans. Set aside.
CARAMELIZED
PINEAPPLE
1 pineapple,
cleaned and sliced 1 inch thick
3 tablespoons Hawaiian
honey
2 tablespoons
mints leaves, sliced
1/3 cup fresh
orange juice
1 tablespoon
chopped orange zest
fleur de sel
In a sauté pan on
medium heat, add the honey, when the honey becomes a light golden color, add
the sliced pineapple (4 pieces). Cook the pineapple for 3 minutes on each size,
until a nice brown color. Add orange juice to pan and reduced by half.
Turn off the heat,
seasoning all the slices of pineapples with, fleur de sel, orange zests, and
the mint. Set aside.
SERVING
On each of 4
plates add one pineapple slice, top with a lobster tail ½ slice and drizzle
with the salted butter from the lobster cooking pan and sauce from pineapple
pan.
—Joe Spring