Tippi Hedrin’s Lobster “Mirin” and Golden Potato Salad (1970)

Yinz remember my friend Jenny in the UK?

She’s the super-cool girl who runs Silver Screen Suppers and wrote a bunch of books:

She is currently working on a sequel to  Murder, She Cooked (a book of recipes from celebrities who appeared on the Angela Lansbury show) and asked me to do a recipe test for her.

Below is my assigned dish, the vaguely Japanese Lobster “Mirin, ” which originally appeared in Cookbook of the Stars (Motion Picture Mothers Inc. 1970)

Pretty simple. Right?

I didn’t grill these because I live in an apartment and do not have a grill. But I do have a broiler.

7 minutes meat-side down and then 20 minutes shell-side down seemed…wrong.  However, my lobster tails weren’t South African lobster tails. So I thought, “Maybe South African lobsters are MONSTER LOBSTERS” hence the increased cooking time.

But no. This is a South African lobster:

They’re kinda small. No big claws.

So someone was drunk when they came up with those cook times. Or there was a massive typo.

My little lobster tails weren’t terribly large, so I cut the cook time down considerably: 3 minutes meat-side down and 5 minute shell-side down. Which was perfect!

Here they are:

These lobster tails were very nice. The soak in the marinade, although laden with soy sauce, didn’t impart too much of a flavor to the lobster. It was more delicate. The sweetness of the mirin worked well with the sweet meat.

Overall, a solid dish.

For good measure, I made Tippi’s Golden Potato Salad, too:

Ah, pimiento, sweet relish, and apples.

Soupy and sweet. That is some white people potato salad there!

Hot take: the best Tippi Hedren movie is not The Birds. It is ROAR.

The most dangerous movie EVER made!

I IMPLORE YOU TO WATCH THIS TRAILER.

I saw this in the theater, hosted by John Waters. It was one of the best movie theater experiences I’ve ever had.

Seriously, WATCH THE TRAILER.

Speaking of cats…

When I got my assignment for the cookbook, Jenny also asked for photos of Renee, the cat we adopted in September.

Who am I to deny the world cute cat pictures?

Here is Renee (the Cat Formerly Known as Rainy) on New Year’s Eve:

Poor Renee came to us with health issues that weren’t disclosed to us at the time of adoption.

1. She’s deaf.
2. She is in the very, very early stages of kidney failure
3. She was underweight and not eating because her mouth was full of infected teeth. 

This is Renee with teeth.

She’s not smiling. Just yelling.

Probably because she was starving and her face hurt.

The week of Thanksgiving, we had all of her teeth extracted.

This is her the day after surgery:

She’s fine and dandy now!

Although she can only eat pates and gravies, she’s put weight back on and is bright eyed and bushy tailed.

I bought her an *NSYNC shirt to celebrate.

Which I think she hates.