Baked Lobster Roll Dip

This Baked Lobster Roll Dip is a twist on the traditional sandwich, with many of the same ingredients, plus cream cheese, it’s a fabulous appetizer! Serve it with a crusty loaf or slices of baguette. Frankly, it would be a great filling for a baked potato as well. 

When our Fish Friday Foodies host for this month event decided on Lobster Rolls as our theme, I was excited because here on the island of Jersey, the lobsters are lovely and freshly caught but I didn’t feel like making a plain sandwich on a bread roll. 

It occurred to me that I could take the lobster roll ingredients perhaps and serve it as a dip instead, like lobster salad. A quick google search revealed that many people had already had that idea, thousands of them in fact. Many were served cold but I was most intrigued by the baked ones, which had a variety of cheese from gruyere or cheddar to Parmesan and cream cheese. 

I could just picture the bubbling dish, hot and melty from the oven! Irresistible! And so it is. 

Baked Lobster Roll Dip

This recipe is adapted from one shared by the Lobster Council of Canada. 

lobstercouncilcanada.ca/recipes/lobster-roll-dip If you are curious about Canadian lobsters, I highly recommend a visit to their site. My cooked lobster was almost 1.1 pound or 500g which yielded 8 oz or 225g of meat from the tail and claws. 

Ingredients

8 oz or 225g plain cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup or 120ml mayonnaise

1/3 cup or 80ml sour cream

8 oz or 225g cooked lobster meat

1 rib celery, finely chop

1/4 medium purple onion (about 40g), finely minced

1 green onion - just the green part

2 tablespoons or 20g drained capers

3 tablespoons or 45ml freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

To serve:

Baguette, sliced in circles, toasted or untoasted, crusty bread or crackers

Method

Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C. Finely chop your celery and green onion top. Finely mince the onion. 

In medium bowl, using handheld electric mixer or in the bowl of your stand mixer, beat cream cheese, mayonnaise and sour cream until smooth and blended. 

Add in the celery, capers, onion, green onion, lemon juice, mustard, cayenne pepper, Old Bay seasoning, salt and black pepper and beat again until combined. 

Chop your lobster meat into small chunks. 

Fold in the lobster into the mixture.

Spread the dip in a baking dish and give the top an extra sprinkle of cayenne, if desired.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until it’s bubbling and hot! Serve with your choice of bread or crackers. 

Enjoy! 

It’s Fish Friday Foodie time! Many thanks to our host, Camilla of Culinary Adventures with Camilla. Check out all of Lobster Roll related recipes below!

• A Lobster Roll Style Debate: Maine vs. Connecticut by Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Brown Butter Lobster Roll by Palatable Pastime
• Baked Lobster Roll Dip by Food Lust People Love
• Hot Buttered Lobster Rolls with Homemade New England Style Buns by Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Lobster Melt English Muffin Sandwich by Sneha's Recipe
• Lobster Roll BLT by A Day in the Life on the Farm

Would you like to join Fish Friday Foodies? We post and share new seafood/fish recipes on the third Friday of the month. To join our group please email Wendy at wendyklik1517 (at) gmail.com. Visit our Facebook page and Pinterest page for more wonderful fish and seafood recipe ideas.

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Soft Sourdough Pretzel Knots #BreadBakers

These soft sourdough pretzel knots are simple to make, requiring only one rise before shaping. They are wonderful warm or toasted for snacking. Split in two, they are great for small sandwiches.

Most traditional pretzel recipes, like those for good chewy bagels, call for a quick dip in boiling water before baking. Sometimes I’m up for it but often I’m not so I was glad to find a recipe on kingarthurbaking.com that skipped that step. The pretzels still turned out lovely, soft and a little chewy. 

We’ve been enjoying them with all sorts of fillings and toppings. Definitely a keeper recipe!

Soft Sourdough Pretzel Knots

As mentioned above, this recipe is adapted from one on the King Arthur Baking website. The final wash calls for non-diastatic malt powder or granulated sugar but I figured, if the point was color, dark brown sugar would help. It did! I also substituted powdered coconut milk to great effect, making this a vegan recipe. 

Ingredients

3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons warm water

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 cup or 227g sourdough starter, unfed/discard

3 cups or 381g unbleached bread flour

1/4 cup or 28g powdered coconut milk (or dry milk powder)

1 1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt

For baking:

1 tablespoon, firmly packed, dark brown sugar 

1 tablespoon water

flakey salt

Method

Prepare a baking sheet by spraying it with vegetable oil spray, or lining it with parchment paper. Grease the parchment with vegetable oil spray to make double-sure the pretzels won't stick.

Measure the dry active yeast into a small bowl and stir in the two tablespoons of warm water along with the sugar. Set aside to prove. The yeast should activate and become foamy. 

Weigh your flour; or measure it by gently spooning it into a cup, then sweeping off any excess. Mix and knead the dough ingredients, including the bowl with the activated yeast — by hand, mixer, or bread machine — to make a cohesive, fairly smooth dough. It should be slightly sticky; if it seems dry, knead in an additional tablespoon of water.

Cover the dough with a damp cloth or cling film and let it rest for 45 minutes. My kitchen is pretty chilly right now so I put my dough bowl in a larger bowl of warm water. That works a treat to help the dough rise properly. 

Towards the end of the rising time, preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface then divide it into 12 equal balls, each weighing about 2 1/2 oz or 71g. (My whole dough ball weighed 848g so that weight for each ball was spot on.)

Roll each piece of dough into an 12 in or 31cm rope. 

Shape each rope into a knot. I found this very tricky but the key seemed to be making sure the piece of dough was at least 12 inches long. Any shorter and forming the knot is a struggle. Video instructions here, also from King Arthur Baking.

Dissolve the brown sugar in the water. Brush the pretzel knots with the solution, and immediately sprinkle them lightly with flakey salt.

Bake the pretzel knots for 20-25 minutes, until they're a lovely golden brown. I turn my pan halfway through to make sure they brown evenly since my oven seems to have hot spots. 

Remove the pretzel knots from the oven. Serve warm or leave to cool on a wire rack. 

Enjoy! 

It’s the second Tuesday of the month so that means it’s time for me and my fellow Bread Bakers to share recipes. Check out the links below. Many thanks to our host Renu from Cook with Renu who chose our theme Anything Pretzel. 

• Air Fryer Soft Pretzel Bites from Cook with Renu
• Homemade Pretzel Bites from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Keto Pretzel Bites from Sneha's Recipe
• Pretzel Hamburger Buns from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Soft Sourdough Pretzel Knots from Food Lust People Love
• Toffee Apple Pretzels from A Messy Kitchen
• Double Jalapeno Cheese Pretzel from Magical Ingredients

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

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Shrimp Spring Roll Bowls

If you love fresh spring rolls with noodles, cucumber, carrot and a lovely spicy dipping sauce, you will love these shrimp spring roll bowls! They are so tasty and easy to make! 

One of my favorite things to eat are these fresh shrimp spring rolls but they are fiddly to put together. First, you have to cook the shrimp flat so they fit in the roll. Then there's the whole soaking the rice paper wrapper till it's pliant enough but not TOO soft so it rips. A labor of love that always felt worth it, till now. 

When our Sunday FunDay host chose "meals in bowls" as our theme today, it occurred to me that, truly, the rice paper wrapper is completely unnecessary unless, of course, you need finger food. 

If you are eating at home and have a table and a fork (spoon also helpful!), the bowls make a wonderful, fresh meal. This revelation is a game changer for me and I don’t think I’ll make rolls again! Not having to wrap the filling meant I could also add some carrots and radishes. All in all, these bowls were a good decision. 

Shrimp Spring Roll Bowls

The noodles used in these bowls are called bean thread noodles or sometimes glass noodles. They are made of mung beans. They are not the same as rice noodles but you’ll find those two noodle types together at many grocery stores in the international aisle or in any Asian market. Depending on the level of heat you enjoy, use all bird’s eye chili peppers or a combo of the bigger less hot chili peppers and the bird’s eye ones. 

Ingredients to serve 2 generously (we both had a little bit leftover)

3 bundles bean thread noodles (about 5 1/3 oz or 150g)

8 large shrimp, peeled and cleaned

fine sea salt

1 small carrot (about 40g), cut in thin strips

1/4 long cucumber (115g), seeded removed, cut in sticks

Small bunch cilantro leaves

1 green onion, thinly sliced

4 French radishes or their round equivalent

For those of you wondering how I got the carrots this thin, here's the tool I used. It looks kind of like a peeler but it cuts the carrot into thin strips. I have no idea what it's called but I love it. 

For the sauce/dressing:

3 hot red chili peppers, minced

1/2 cup or 120ml rice vinegar 

1/2 cup or 120ml water

1/3 cup or 75g sugar

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt 

To serve:

Fish sauce, optional - we like the little bit of extra flavor and saltiness it adds to these shrimp spring roll bowls. 

Method 

Put the noodles in a heatproof bowl and cover them with boiling water. 

Leave to soak for a few minutes then tip into a colander and rinse well with cold water. Set aside in the colander to drain. 

Cut the shrimp into pieces and lightly salt them.  Cook in a small skillet till cooked through. 

To make the sauce, chop your peppers finely.

Put all the sauce ingredients into a small pot. 

Bring to a boil and then simmer, uncovered, until it is reduced to one-third of the original amount. Turn the fire off. It will thicken even more as it cools. 

Cut the noodles with scissors to make them easier to eat. Put them in a large bowl and pour the warm sauce over them and stir to combine. 

At this point, you can finish assembling the bowls or you can cover and refrigerate the noodles to assemble later. 

To assemble the bowls, divide the noodles into two bowls. Add the cucumber and carrot sticks, the cilantro leaves, shrimp, green onion and radishes. Finish with a drizzle of fish sauce, if desired. 

Enjoy! 

It’s Sunday FunDay and today we are all sharing “meals in bowls.” Check out the links below. Many thanks to our host, Mayuri from Mayuri’s Jikoni.

• Shredded Beef Taco Bowls from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Greek Chicken Rice Bowls from Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Saffron Bulgur Bowl from Palatable Pastime
• Tofu and Sprouted Moong Buddha Bowl from Cook with Renu
• Shrimp Spring Roll Bowls from Food Lust People Love
• Cheesy Rice Bowl - Cafe McDonalds Style from Sneha’s Recipe
• Baked Falafel Bowl from Mayuri’s Jikoni

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join. 

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