Pan-Seared Garlic Langoustines
An elegant restaurant dish, right in your own kitchen! This delicacy used to be hard to find in stores, but it's much more available now — you'll spot it in many large supermarkets and specialty seafood shops. Still, plenty of people aren't sure how to cook it. Let's learn!
Cooking method
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Step 1:
Gather all your ingredients. When buying langoustines, check their quality. First, they shouldn't be caked in ice — a heavy coating means the seafood has been frozen more than once. Second, the tail should be curled inward, a sign of freshness. If the tail is straight, the langoustine was already dead when caught.
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Step 2:
Thaw the langoustines before searing. Never subject seafood to a sudden temperature swing — thawing it the wrong way causes moisture loss, which sets the protein and turns the meat tough. So first let the langoustines sit in the fridge for about 1.5 hours, then thaw them at room temperature for another 2 to 2.5 hours.
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Step 3:
Rinse the thawed langoustines under running water and let them drain in a colander for a few minutes. Using kitchen scissors, make a neat cut down the length of the shell along the back and pull out the dark thread — the intestinal vein. Be sure to remove it, since it can hold sand and bits of algae that spoil the flavor and add bitterness.
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Step 4:
Pour vegetable oil into a skillet and heat it, then add the prepared langoustines. Sear them over medium heat for 3 to 4 minutes until golden on one side, then flip them, lower the heat, and cook for another 5 minutes. The meat under the shell needs to cook through — high heat gives a pretty crust but leaves the inside raw.
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Step 5:
Peel the garlic cloves and slice them thin. Scrub the lemon well under water, since it goes into the pan unpeeled, zest and all. Cut the lemon into rough slices. Add the garlic and lemon to the skillet and cook them with the langoustines for 1 minute — just long enough for the garlic to release its aroma without burning. Season with salt and pepper.
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Step 6:
Turn off the heat, cover the pan, and let the langoustines rest for another 10 minutes. During this time they'll soak up even more of the garlic and lemon aromas, and the meat will finish cooking through. Arrange the seared garlic langoustines on a platter, garnish with fresh herbs, and — to bring out the delicate meat — give them a squeeze of lemon juice.
Caloric content of the products possible in the composition of the dish
- Lemon - 16 kcal/100g
- Lemon zest - 47 kcal/100g
- Garlic - 143 kcal/100g
- Ground black pepper - 255 kcal/100g
- Vegetable oil - 873 kcal/100g
- Langoustine (tail meat) - 88 kcal/100g
- Langoustine - 112 kcal/100g
- Salt - 0 kcal/100g
