Astakomakaronada

Before you crack your tongue trying to pronounce the name of this recipe, let's break it down into the two parts that make it up. In this way we learn some Greek.

"Astakós" means lobster in Greek while "makaronáda" is spaghetti. Therefore the dish would come to be called "Lobster with spaghetti". If you have noticed that "makaronada" sounds like macaroni, you are right. The Greeks consume pasta but with little success in the choice of names. The same thing happens to the Spanish who call the penne 'macarrón'.

It has some merit that Greeks eat Italian pasta. Contacts between Greeks and Italians have generated quite a bit of resentment in the former since time immemorial. Leaving aside the Roman conquest, which could not be considered Italians, the worst came in the Middle Ages.

The Italian republics, especially Venice and Genoa, dedicated themselves to looting the remains of the Eastern Roman Empire - Greek in language - and also promoted forced conversions to Catholic Christianity that they practiced to the detriment of the Orthodox Church that was the own one of the inhabitants of the Empire . As if that were not enough, already in modern times, Mussolini's Italians dominated various Greek islands with an iron fist until the end of the Second World War. In short, after the Turks, the Italians also do not fare well among the nations less loved by the Greeks.

Astakomakaronada is considered a recipe from the island of Skýros, in the center of the Aegean Sea. It is a small island that is not usually visited by tourists, although due to its strategic position it has a Greek army air base. In summer it is fun to see how fighters leave from it to expel Turkish plane fighters that enter the Greek airspace just to disturb, day yes, day too. So if you find yourself on the beach and hear a thunderous noise it is due, except for an earthquake or volcanic eruption - also possible in Greece -, to the war games that take place on the disputed Aegean.

The island of Skýros has 3,000 inhabitants and they have maintained the same population for at least the last century except for an interval in which a catastrophe occurred that reminds us of the present. Despite the remoteness and isolation, in 1918 the so-called Spanish Flu arrived on the island. Two thirds of the population contracted the disease and one third (yes, you heard correctly, 1000 people), died. For the island, which as all of them are like small quite endogamous universes, losing a third of the population must have been a brutal shock.

There are several ways to make this recipe. What is served to tourists is usually the lobster meat cooked and put back in the shell - so that you realize that you eat lobster and hence the large bill that you are going to pay at the end of the meal - so that everything rests on a bed of spaghetti ... that often the tourist does not even eat.

The authentic way to prepare the astakomakaronada is to cook the meat of the tail in a broth formed by the shell of the animal, all washed down with ouzo liquor, and then add the spaghetti that must be impregnated with said sauce. So apart from eating the meat of the lobster, you eat a paste that has taken on the flavor of the lobster. Then if they want to add decorations so that you realize what you eat, is up to them.

INGREDIENTS (4 people):

• 1 lobster weighing about 1 kg (2.2 lbs) *
• 300 grams (11 oz) of spaghetti
• 1 cup of crushed tomato
• 50 ml (a quarter cup) of ouzo liqueur
• 1 red onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tablespoon of chopped parsley
• Salt
• Ground black pepper
• Extra virgin olive oil

* The meat that we can take from a 1kg / 2.2 lbs lobster is about the half

First we are going to proceed to clean the lobster.

To do this, with great care, we cut the sheet that holds the head with the tail, separating them. We clean the inside of the head by removing the entrails but keeping the shell.

With the same sharp knife, we cut the lobster's tail lengthwise, extracting the meat from the inside. You will see that it is a kind of almost transparent jelly. We remove the intestine that runs along the loin, which we discard.

Sometimes the lobster is a carrier of roe, which we will reserve, as well as the carcass of the tail. Roe is considered a delicacy and will add a lot of flavor to the sauce. That if it takes them, which does not always happen.

In a large saucepan over medium heat with a generous stream of olive oil add the head and tail shells, stirring constantly until they turn a deep red color.

When this happens we carefully introduce the meat from the tail. We will see that little by little it goes from being translucent to turning opaque white.

When this happens, we add the chopped onion and whole garlic. We keep until the onion is transparent, generally about 3 minutes.

After time, pour in the ouzo liqueur and let it cook until half evaporates (it's easy, much of it is alcohol, so it will evaporate in a matter of seconds).

We remove the tail and place it somewhere where it stays warm.

Add the crushed tomato and let it cook over medium-low heat with the pan covered for 10 minutes (do not remove the carcasses or the roe, if any). At the end of cooking, season with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, boil the spaghetti in plenty of salted water to make it al dente, according to the manufacturer's instructions.

We lift the lid of the casserole and add the meat of the tail cut into slices, previously removing the carcasses that we reserve. Let it cook together for a couple of minutes, rectifying again with salt and pepper. If the sauce is very thick, we can reduce it with a little water.

We place the spaghetti and the lobster meat on top. If we want, we can use the carcass (head, tail, or parts of both) to decorate, reintroducing the meat again, more for decoration than anything else. Sprinkle chopped parsley on top and ready to serve.

This dish does not require grated cheese and the best thing, guess what, is the flavor that the pasta acquires.