Lobster appetizer ideas needed!

[Jenise]

Some of you who also frequent the Wine Berserkers site will likely know the name Warren Taranow. He drinks a lot of amazing wines, in particular champagne. The top of my cellar is about where the bottom of his begins!

Well, last night I found out that I'll be helping him celebrate his birthday, He'll be opening a fortune's worth of wines, so before the sun even came up this morning I put in an order for $468 worth of lobster tails from Maine to be delivered at the end of next week. Will have enough for Bob and I to have a lobster dinner or two as well as provide an obscenely decadent appetizer of some kind for Warren's gathering.

But I don't know what. I don't get my hands on lobster often enough to have a surfeit of lobster ideas floating around in my head. The reflex is to substitute lobster for something I usually do with crab or shrimp but lobster can do more owing to its substantive shape and density.

Anyone have any ideas for me? Must travel well and, if warm, not require more than reheating on site. Fresh spring rolls would work well but I'd need to come up with a way of putting my own unique stamp on them. (I don't want to do anything very common, like lobster mac n cheese or lobster rolls. I just rifled thru stuff on Food52 and found the site surprisingly lacking much that answers to lobster+appetizer and fairly disorganized--a lot of the recipes it responded with weren't even lobster.)

We eat lobster fsirly often, though usually are buying whole live. But I think most of the things we do would work for tails.
Offhand some of the things we served as appetizers:
I often do a lobster/tarragon citrus salad, easy to do portions
I think chilled tea glasses (think Moroccan style - we had some about 3 inches hight) filled with layers of lobster, avocado, and mango (not too ripe) with a sesame soy dressing
cold summer rolls would be easier to transport than spring rolls, though maybe might soak through. Thinking quasi-Vietnamese, though cilantro can be risky for a group

We've done leftover lobster in cold soup, either gazpacho or sorrel, as well. Would make a nice starter.
Personally I'd avoid trying to do anything warm. unless you can do entire prep/cook/serve at once. Rewarming lobster is never an optimal experience.

[Jenise]

It's not going to be a dinner party; rather, people standing around mingling. I love the idea of small parfaits like you mentioned but would balk at including avocado in anything do-ahead.

When I mentioned fresh spring rolls, I definitely meant the raw/uncooked Vietnamese kind in cold rice paper wrappers. Might be my best bet. I get what you mean about cilantro but if there's someone present with that problem I can't worry about it.

Another idea I had while driving around yesterday? A re-work of lobster thermidor as a stuffed mushroom. Lobster chunks in a sherry-tarragon sauce stuffed inside mushrooms. All ingredients cooked, just gently re-warmed on site.

I always refer to uncooked rice paper wraps as summer rolls, and fried with dough wrappers as spring rolls. But I have no source for that, just what I learned long ago. Like the idea of stuffed mushrooms . I do think those 2 sounds like best bet for standing hors d'ouerves - you don't want anything that requires cutlery.
Since you have just tails, easy to cut into bite size slices, another possibility might be a skewer. You said you had a tomato glut but hard to skewer. Maybe with cherry tomatoes and herb mayo (sorrel, tarragon, basil would all work)? Or even curry mayo. I'm trying to imagine lobster snd melon- might work but would experiment first.

Lobster lends itself to small - I think you've seen me use the ceramic Asian spoons that sit nicely on a tray for nibbles - a bit of lobster either cold or warm with a suitable 'sauce' - anything from simple warm garlic butter to a more complex Asian sauce would disappear pretty quickly, I should think.

[Jenise]

I always refer to uncooked rice paper wraps as summer rolls, and fried with dough wrappers as spring rolls. But I have no source for that, just what I learned long ago. Like the idea of stuffed mushrooms . I do think those 2 sounds like best bet for standing hors d'ouerves - you don't want anything that requires cutlery.
Since you have just tails, easy to cut into bite size slices, another possibility might be a skewer. You said you had a tomato glut but hard to skewer. Maybe with cherry tomatoes and herb mayo (sorrel, tarragon, basil would all work)? Or even curry mayo. I'm trying to imagine lobster snd melon- might work but would experiment first.

The nomenclature for those rolls is definitely not standardized and it could be just another one of those east coast vs. west coast anomalies. I grew up with what you call spring rolls being called egg rolls in Chinese restaurants, in spite of the decided absence of egg. The raw rice paper wrapped guys didn't show up until the Vietnamese influx post 1975 and are largely called spring rolls here on the west coast--but I'm not 100% positive. I might see 'spring' and 'summer' and not really pay attention.

I don't have cherry tomatoes, those would have to be bought. The one plant that was supposed to be cherries turned out to be more like a baby roma. Pretty tasteless. But I like the other two ideas better anyway. You mentioned mango--I did see a recipe on Food52 for "spring rolls" with mango in them, was called Cambodian. Reminded me of a favorite crab and mango roll I used to order every time I went to a certain sushi place in Vancouver. Sounds very intriguing--but I have to admit the lobster thermidor reference in the stuffed mushrooms sounds like a great fit for the high end bubbles Warren will be popping. If I had the time I'd like to do both, but I probably don't.

[Jenise]

Lobster lends itself to small - I think you've seen me use the ceramic Asian spoons that sit nicely on a tray for nibbles - a bit of lobster either cold or warm with a suitable 'sauce' - anything from simple warm garlic butter to a more complex Asian sauce would disappear pretty quickly, I should think.

Yes, I've encountered those elsewhere too. But I wouldn't want to buy spoons or use a plastic substitute and I'd need a lot to ensure 2-3 pieces per person.

Actually, I have around 50 ceramic spoons if you need them.