Lobster salad with crispy bacon & ginger dressing

This is my favourite dressing of all time, once it’s made with some clever knife skills it keeps in the fridge for a few weeks. It’s great on grilled vegetables, fish, meat or a salad like this. Once you have carefully tamed all of the meat out of the lobster, break the shells up and pop them in a bag in the freezer for a stock, soup or broth.

Serves 4

cooked lobsters with the claw and tail meat removed

4 rashers of streaky bacon, cut into small dice

1tbs vegetable or corn oil

1 small carrot, shredded into matchstick sized pieces

1 small stick of celery, peeled if necessary and shredded into matchstick sized pieces

A couple handfuls of small tasty salad leaves and coriander leaves (finely chop the stalks for the dressing)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the dressing

1 small carrot, peeled and finely chopped

A small piece of root ginger (around 30g), scraped and finely chopped

1 small clove of garlic, peeled and grated or crushed

4-5cm piece of celery, peeled if necessary and finely chopped

small red chilli, trimmed, seeded and finely chopped

1tbsp tomato ketchup

½tbsp soy sauce

50-60ml vegetable or rapeseed oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

To make the dressing, mix all the ingredients together, season lightly and leave to infuse in the fridge overnight. You can adjust the consistency with a little water before using if it’s too thick.

Heat a little oil in a frying pan and cook the bacon on a medium heat for 2-3 minutes or a little longer until crisp then transfer to a plate with kitchen paper.

To serve the salad, mix the shredded vegetables with the salad leaves and arrange in piles in the middle of serving plates. Then place a claw on top of the salad and the rest of the claw meat mix in with the leaves under the claw. Cut the tails in half lengthways and cut each half into 5-6 pieces and arrange around the salad. Then spoon the dressing around over the pieces of lobster.