Ingredients:

1 cooked lobster

25ml brandy

125ml white wine

1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped

1 stick of celery, trimmed and roughly chopped

1 tspn tomato puree

1 star anise

Sprig of thyme

1/2 medium hot red chilli, de-seeded and finely sliced

1 fat clove of garlic, peeled and finely chopped

3-4 spring onions, trimmed and finely sliced

2 tbsp olive oil

175ml good quality tomato passata, home-made if possible

3-4 large plum tomatoes, skinned, de-seed and neatly diced

Large handful of basil leaves

Tagliatelle (or linguine or spaghetti)

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6. Prepare the lobster (there are lots of how-to videos and instructions online) and put the flesh in a bowl, covered, in the fridge until later. Don’t overlook the meat in the legs, which you can squeeze out with the gentle action of a rolling pin. Put the pieces of shell in a roasting tin with the chopped celery and onion and roast for 15-20 minutes.

Put the brandy into a large saucepan on a medium-high heat and reduce until you’re left with a tablespoonful. Add the wine and reduce again until you have about two tablespoons of liquid. Stir in the tomato paste and add the star anise.

Scrape the lobster shell and vegetables into the saucepan, breaking up the pieces of shell a bit more if you can, and cover with water. Bring to the boil, lower the temperature and simmer gently for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, skimming off any scum.

Strain through a fine sieve, return the liquid to the cleaned pan and simmer again until reduced to about 100ml of deep-flavoured stock. Set aside. You can prepare ahead up to this point if that fits your schedule better.

Heat the olive oil in another pan and fry the spring onions, garlic, chilli and thyme until the onions have softened.

Add the passata and lobster stock and reduce until you have a sauce thick enough to coat the pasta. Discard the thyme. Add any scrappy bits of lobster to the sauce, slice the larger parts into large bite-sized pieces and reserve for later. Check the seasoning of the sauce, adding salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Set aside while you heat the pasta water.

Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil and cook the tagliatelle until al dente. Drain, and stir in a ladleful of the sauce. Add the sliced lobster and diced tomatoes to the remaining sauce. Heat through, but don’t cook it for more than three or four minutes or the lobster could go rubbery. Rip up the basil leaves, saving a few for garnish, and stir them through.

Put a tangle of pasta onto warmed plates and top with the lobster and its sauce. I hope you savour the flavour as much as we did.