A “different” kind of treat…
While many of our recipes are creations that have been submitted by family, friends, and fans, and even though our recipes tend to revolve around seafood dishes that are common to the Baltimore, Maryland area, we couldn’t help but include Lobster Crackerjacks as a dessert dish in our collection of seafood recipes. Yes, you read that right, Lobster Crackerjacks.
If you are thinking to yourself that when you hear Crackerjacks your mind wanders back to times when life was simpler and you were just a kid eating a box of traditional Crackerjacks – caramel popcorn with peanuts. So, they must mean a popcorn snack/dessert, but they said lobster, so they can’t mean something with popcorn. Or can they?
Check out this video clip from the British cooking reality show that is a competition for amateur chefs and you will see just that – Lobster with popcorn, coconut, and caramel!
Master Chef finalist, Johnny B, brought this interesting seafood dessert/snack concoction to our attention and it definitely caught the attention of the three judges, Gordon Ramsey, Joe Bastianich, and Graham Elliot, all of whom are restaurateurs and/or professional chefs. As you can imagine, the judges had the same reaction that you probably had – shock, disgust, intrigue, disbelief. But, the judges have to give everyone a fair chance so they had to taste it.
Johnny B claims that his Lobster Crackerjacks is a favorite dish among his friends and family that it is requested at every party, dinner, or gathering that he throws or attends. If you want to give it a shot and make this interesting, and supposedly delicious, seafood dessert/snack dish, here’s how.
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 bag microwave popcorn
- 6 lobster legs
- Caramel –homemade (as seen on the show) or store bought Smucker’s caramel sauce.
- Shaved coconut
DIRECTIONS:
- Johnny B starts out by using a beer bottle to roll the lobster meat out of the lobster legs.
- He then adds the lobster to a bowl that already has popped popcorn in it.
- Then Johnny pours his homemade caramel over the lobster and popcorn.
- Finally, he gently mixes the popcorn, lobster, and caramel so it is all well coated then spoons it into the martini glasses that he serves it in and sprinkles a small handful of coconut on top.
–> Homemade Caramel:
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 ½ cups sugar
- 1/3 cup water
- 1 ¼ cup heavy whipping cream
- 1.2 tsp pure vanilla extract
DIRECTIONS:
- Using a sauce pan, mix the water and sugar together then cover it and let it cook on low heat until the sugar dissolves. This should take between 5 and 10 minutes.
- Without stirring, take the lid off and simply increase to medium heat.
- Let the sugar water boil until it is a warm brown (caramel) color – this should take about 6 minutes. While the color is turning, you will want stir the mixture by swirling the pan. Do not use a spoon. Be very careful not to boil it for too long as caramel can very easily go from sweet to being burned.
- Turn the heat off and add the vanilla and cream slowly.
- Turn the hear back on low and simmer. At this point you will want to stir the caramel constantly as you see Johnny B doing in the Master Chef Lobster Crackerjacks video clip.
After Johnny added the finishing touch or a sprinkling of shaved coconut to his Caramel Crackerjacks, each judge approached the table one at a time and each one of them looked more serious and skeptical of the dish than the last (they also weren’t shy about voicing their skepticism). The judges all tasted Johnny B’s Lobster Crackerjacks with a straight face but after the commercial break they all expressed how shockingly good it was! They were quite impressed!
Don’t like lobster or one of the other ingredients in the Lobster Crackerjacks? Did you try this recipe and love it so much you want to see what else you can do to mix it up a little? Try one of these variations that we came up with:
VARIATIONS:
- Try crab meat or shrimp instead of lobster.
- Replace the caramel with dark chocolate and sprinkle with sea salt instead of coconut.
- Use dark chocolate in addition to the caramel and sprinkle with sea salt. If you do this, be sure to only use half of the caramel and use an equal amount of dark chocolate.