Langouste à la vanille recipe — traditional dish from Comoros

Name: Langouste à la vanille
Prep time: 12 min
Cook time: 23 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Comoros
Ingredients: 2 vanilla pods; 2 spiny lobster; 2 shallots; 50 g butter; 200 ml heavy cream; 100 ml cognac; 300 g white rice; 1 lime

Split spiny lobster finished in a cream sauce infused with a whole Comorian vanilla pod, seeds and all.

How to make Langouste à la vanille

Split 2 spiny lobsters lengthwise with a heavy knife, rinse out the head and season the flesh with salt and pepper.

Split 2 vanilla pods and scrape out the seeds with the back of the knife. Keep the empty pods, they carry as much flavour as the seeds.

Melt 50 g of butter in a wide pan and sweat 2 finely chopped shallots for 3 minutes without colouring them.

Lay the lobster halves flesh side down in the butter and cook 5 minutes, until the shells turn red.

Pour in 100 ml of cognac and flame it, or let it boil off for 1 minute if you would rather not.

Add 200 ml of heavy cream, the vanilla seeds and the scraped pods, and simmer gently for 10 minutes, spooning the sauce over the lobster.

Cook 300 g of white rice meanwhile, and lift out the vanilla pods before serving.

Serve the lobster halves on the rice, sauce poured over, with lime wedges on the side.

What is Langouste à la vanille?

Langouste à la vanille is a traditional dish from Comoros, simmered in one pot, and takes about 35 minutes from start to finish. It is built around white rice, heavy cream and cognac. The recipe below uses 8 ingredients and is written out step by step.

How long does Langouste à la vanille take?

At 35 minutes it is quicker than 92% of the 586 dishes in Copper's atlas. Copper's atlas has 21 dishes built on white rice. The method runs to 8 steps, the longest being 10 minutes.

Any tips for making Langouste à la vanille?

Put the scraped vanilla pods into the cream along with the seeds, since they carry as much flavour, and lift them out before serving.

How Langouste à la vanille compares

Hard to find elsewhere: vanilla pods (1), spiny lobster (1) and cognac (1).

Cooked with the same thing elsewhere

Other traditional dishes built on shallots, from other countries.

Nasi lemak 🇧🇳 Brunei Darussalam
Satay 🇧🇳 Brunei Darussalam
Rendang 🇮🇩 Indonesia
Laksa 🇲🇾 Malaysia
Nasi lemak 🇲🇾 Malaysia
Khao soi 🇹🇭 Thailand

Copper documents Comoros alongside 197 other countries. Every recipe is free to read, with the full ingredient list and every step.