Maine Diner - Lobster Roll & Blueberry Pie

Located just north of the Maine-New Hampshire state line is the Maine Diner - just take Exit 19 to Wells and follow the signs down Route 1.

This is an old-school diner wrapped in a postcard-stand simply crawling with tourists...but hey Maine is known as Vacationland, so I won't hold it against them, even despite the fact that the adjacent gift shop bears the title (groan) Remember the Maine.

There was a 30 minute wait to be seated and several people were electing to take the counter seats to cut down on the wait. Once we were in and seated, service was awesomely fast yet I never felt rushed. Specials on the board announced things like Red Flannel Hash and Potluck, but were here for the seafood and began to zero in on the highlights of the menu.

The bowl of seafood chowder here was well stocked with a mix of Maine shrimp (read jumbo salad shrimp), scallops and potatoes; you can see the abundance I dredged up from the bottom of my cup. Elizabeth ordered the she-crab soup, which was a little too gelatinous, having the consistency somewhere between cottage cheese and Elmer's glue . I offered to cut the gooey mess with several spoonfuls of the delicious golden broth of my chowder and after which her cup of she-crab began to resemble a soup.

This is what we were really in search of...the lobster roll. The Maine Diner featured two kinds of lobster rolls, cold and hot. We opted for the classic cold lobster in a hot bun; I was worried that the lobster would be too mayonnaise-coated but it turned out to provide just enough of a binding agent to hold together the sweet lobster claw and knuckle pieces that nearly spilled out from the bun with every bite.

There was also a "Lobster Pie" advertised as a special, but the description seemed to conjure up visions of lobster and stuffing, scooped into a small casserole dish and thrown under the broil to heat through till crunchy.

I was skeptical about the awesome accolades of the blueberry pie on the menu until I saw one go by to a neighboring table. The diminutive Maine blueberry packs more berry flavor due to the smaller size lending more skins to the pie mix. Coupled with the fact that the pie filling itself was not overly sweetened and the crust was homemade, I'd have to say this was the best slice of pie I've had in recent memory.

When I went to pay the check, I mentioned to the cashier how excellent the blueberry pie was and he confessed to never having tried it. I guess being surrounded by lobster and blueberries, you don't really see what all the fuss is about...I know when I used to work in an ice-cream store as a kid the customers would ask how one of the 31 flavors tasted and were somewhat surprised to hear that I didn't know because I never touched the stuff.

Marc Vetri's Porcini Crusted Halibut & Blackberry Sauce

I noticed a lone little baggie of dried porcini mushrooms sitting in the far back of the pantry last week and decided that today was the day that I'd do something other than re-hydrate and give to Elizabeth to add to one of her risottos. Actually she was working late that night and I don't have what it takes to make a risotto as good as hers
.


Grabbing my latest library loaned cookbook, Marc Vetri's Il Viaggio, I spotted a recipe that used porcinis and blueberries...so unusual sounding that I had to try it.

Porcini-Crusted Halibut & Blueberry Sauce (link to recipe)

Although this blueberry-'shroom combo may not be so odd after all...somebody I met at a party told me that they saw a mushroom & blueberry risotto on a local menu recently. We also sampled a blueberry & basil compound butter that was savory and delicious, another unexpected blueberry matchup that works.

Looking in the fridge, we spied our blueberry supply was gone...we used blackberries instead. I'm thinking the subtler blueberry would play even better with the porcini crust (which, by the way, is very delicate, so once you get the fish in the pan, be gentle!).

OK, I knew there was no way we were going to have time to really give it that fussy-clean look on a Wednesday night after we both got home from work late, but I still wanted to give the dish a partner to the dance that wasn't plain.



Here's a Yukon Gold I halved then punched out with a small biscuit cutter, slicing the cylinders & rings into coins. Put the potatoes in a thin layer of olive oil in a hot pan, let them begin to brown , then salt & pepper, flip, then throw in 1/2 cup of water to make an instant pillar of steam.

This may be common knowledge around the rest of the culinary world, but I just figured out that if you shut your lid on tight when you dump the water, the steam action will cook the potatoes through before they burn to a crisp. When you're about ready to pull the fish or whatever meat you've got on, pull the lid off the potatoes and let the steam cook off...you're left with seared potatoes that are cooked through.

We didn't have blueberries laying around for the sauce so we used blackberries and blood oranges...I think it ended up looking like a fish that wanted to be a bloody rare steak, but it tasted alot better than it looked. The oil & mushroom-dust crust were aromatic and deep, while the berry helped to brighten up and keep moist the meatier halibut...the white-fleshed fish soaked up the flavor beneath the browned crust.

We served this with a warm spinach salad & citrus-bacon vinaigrette; I bought some Pink Navel oranges from WFM that had the firmness of a grapefruit, which made for perfect supremes, but had the seedless & juicy character of the navel orange.