Here's a great way to get some tail!

Whether you are thinking of popping the question or just creating that special intimate dinner for two, Rocky Fino can show you how. Nothing sets the mood more than an amazing home cooked candle light dinner. Let IPPY award nominated Rocky Fino famed author of "Will Cook for Sex" lead you through the steps of making this fabulous lobster tail dinner and even better, it's so simple you are bound to impress your date with your culinary skills.

This is Dr. Letitia Wright for IDC dating.com. IDC Dating.com is where we are creating multicultural relationships everyday. We are here with our sexy chef Rocky Fino, who is the author of "Will Cook for Sex." Rocky, I have got some great news to tell you.

What is that?

I heard a wonderful success story on IDC Dating.com, where a couple were talking about how they met and how they fell in love. In the middle of telling their success story, they actually proposed.

No way.

Yes. Bombtongue and maurice27 are now officially engaged. I guess officially off the market of IDC Dating.com.

Yes, that will take you off the market. It usually does. It must have been the food that did it.

That could be it.

Rock Fino: That is amazing. How long is the process? It is a pretty quick success story, is not it?

Yes. I think they have met over a couple of months and their whole story is actually going to be listed on the connections newsletter. So, people can look at the story of bombtongue and maurice27. Yes, I mean, they didn't spend centuries looking for each other because all of the qualifications were there. They were able to meet and find out that they liked each other very much.

Right on. When it is right, it is right.

It is. That is it.

Hey, I'll tell you what. So, he popped the question right there on the spot?

Yes, right there on the spot.

That is interesting to me because when you are thinking of popping the question, that is a night that you really going to plan in your head like every step of the way. You work with your strengths at that point. I am not the type of guy who would go out and do that in front of 45,000 screaming fans, have their name come up on the billboard or whatever it is, in the stadium. You see those stories at the ballpark or whatever and he would stand up in front. That would not be me.

Okay.

Putting her on the spot like that. I would be more for the intimate dinner for two.

Okay.

Which is typical of me. I am one dimensional that way. I like the food angle, my strength. No, No, that should be something you would want to do. You have got to keep it simple. You have got other things in your mind that day. All that you can do is focus on her, making this incredible meal. You got some other things that concern you. I would tell you right now, women generally love pastas. What I know that says elegance and says special is lobster.

Wow! Yes, of course.

Just the word lobster and all of the sudden, eyes light up. It is not everyday you get lobster, so I think we do a Lobster Fusilli pasta.

Lobster Fusilli pasta. How do we spell that?

Fusilli?

Yes.

F-u-s-i-l-l-i.

Okay.

They are the little curly Qs.

Okay.

That is just the style of pasta, those little curly Q pastas.

Sometimes they are in like red and green color?

You could get them in spinach fusilli, the green spinach fusilli. I am sure during the holiday season, they probably have a couple of boxes out there, put some red and green together.

So, this dish is going to be lobster and pasta. How long does it take to prepare for this? Is this a long (talk over)?

No. This is going to take as long as it takes, basically, a few minutes prep, cutting, and then as long as it takes to heat the water and boil the pasta.

Okay. Let us go to the ingredients list first.

Yes, because we do not want to do too much shopping this day either.

Okay.

You got to figure, the main shopping has been done on that ring. He is focused on the rock. We are going to keep it simple as always. You start with your one shallot, which is that small onion we talked about before, one shallot. And we are going to get a pound of lobster tail, which most likely you are going to get two half-pound tails.

How do we tell fresh from stale? Is there any special way of picking them?

You know what? The lobsters are tricky one to find. I got to tell you a lot of times, you are going to end up finding frozen tails.

Okay.

Best bet on the lobsters, just check with the guy behind counter.

Okay.

They are pretty honest with you.

Okay.

Now, we are going to get one bunch of cilantro. A box of the fusilli pasta.

And?

We are going to have some oil, olive oil.

Olive oil and that is from our basic list.

And our butter from our basic list. Fish stock would be the preferred broth you would want to use here, not always easy to find.

Okay.

So if you cannot find fish stock, we are going to go with chicken broth. Chicken broth is a good enough substitute.

Okay, great. But do not sweat it looking for fish broth but if you are unable to find it, chicken broth is just fine.

And lastly, we are going to get some small container, half-and-half for milk. That is our shopping list. We are pretty good.

Wow! Okay.

A pasta is a meal in itself and it is a nice elegant dish that we are going to serve over with a glass of wine. For me, I would probably have a pretty neat dessert, maybe that you pick up at the bakery, for the end of the meal just because that would be something to celebrate. Again, pending that she says yes. Then there is something to celebrate.

What kind of wine would you suggest someone to look for?

With the lobsters, which got a nice rich flavor. You can mix it up here. A good chardonnay. Nice crisp chardonnay would go good with this.

Okay.

If you are a red wine fan, maybe even a fruity sangiovese or something like that would work.

Okay. That sounds great.

It would not hurt to have a bottle of champagne on hand.

Yes.

This is the night of all nights.

Exactly. Do not forget the champagne. That will be extra in there, just in case.

You bet.

Okay. So, we have got our shopping list together. We have made our wine selection. We have got a nice dessert from a bakery or even some of the bakeries and the stores. You can have some pretty nice, special items.

Yes. You get something special for that night. I would look for something really good. Something that is going to be, like I said, this is going to be a neat experience. After the "yes" question, the rest of the night is a celebration.

Exactly. So, we have got all of our ingredients.

The one thing I am confused about is we would always talk about him, Barry White is a stone cold winner when it comes to background music.

Okay. Hands down.

Hands down but are we running Barry White on this night? I do not know. I think you got to do something a little different.

Okay.

That question is up for grabs.

That question is up for grabs. Okay. The music that you choose to set the mood. As long as it is her favorite.

That would be the key. That is right. And if you can time it to where her favorite comes on, on remote right there, when you are ready to get down on one knee. Again, I am just throwing out ideas. Hollywood production style.

Yes. Feel the deal.

Alright. I am going back to the kitchen where I belong. So, what we are going to do is let us chop our shallot. Finally, chop our shallot.

We have got it all chopped.

We are prepping right now, that is what we are going to do. Then we are going to chop, take the lobster tails. Remove the meat from the tails, which usually, if you have those little kitchen shears, you can cut down the thin underside of the tail. Let your hands peel the tail back and remove the meat that should come out in one chunk. We are going to chop that into cubes. Take about an eighth to a quarter cup of the cilantro leaves and we will finally chop them up.

Do we leave the stems on?

No. You remove the leaves from the stem. So, de-stem, then remove the leaves and then we are going to finally chop it up. You will get a little 1/8 cup of chopped cilantro.

Cilantro smells so good. It is wonderful.

It is a neat herb. I mean, to our work with, it provides and it is flavorful.

Yes, very flavorful.

Let us go over and get our water started for the pasta. We are not going to cook much pasta for this meal. I honestly think that again, here is an evening that you know what is going on. So, you are a little nervous. There is a chance she knows what it is all coming to. This is probably a lead in to such a situation, so there could be a little nerves on her end too. The richness of the lobster really catches the meal, so we do not need a ton of pasta. Even though you bought the whole box because it is the way you have to buy it. We will only going to use about a quarter of that box.

Okay. So, quarter of the actual box that we bought.

If it is a 16-ounce box, all you need is about 4-6 ounces of pasta.

Okay, great.

You are going to boil, for 4-6 ounces of pasta you are going to need just a couple of quartz of water. And then we are going to add our salt to the water, one tablespoon. And drizzle a little oil in the water. We talked about this before, that oil keeps the pasta from sticking together. It is a little helpful hint. We are going to bring that water to a boil. While that is heating up, we are going to use another large skillet.

So, we have got the large skillet.

That is where we are going to make our sauce.

Do we have to pre-heat the skillet at all?

Yes, we are going to pre-heat the skillet over medium heat and we are going to add about a tablespoon of olive oil. When we do that, we are going to add our shallot.

So, that is olive oil warmed up. Shallots go in.

The shallots go into the pan. And what we want to do is caramelize the shallot but we do not want to go too far with it because we do not want it to brown and change the color of the sauce.

Okay.

We are going to cook it until it is clear.

So, shallots are only cooked till clear. and then do we scoop them out?

No. Until clear. It is going to be about 1-2 minutes that will take for the shallot to turn clear. At that point, we are going to add our lobster.

Okay, great.

We are just going to add the cubed lobster right to the pan. Stir that occasionally and move it around at the beginning. And then basically, you are cooking the lobster until it turns white.

Okay.

It will only take a couple of minutes also. You stir occasionally, keep it mixed. (Inaudible) one ingredient that should be on the cupboard that I forgot to mention, we are going to need about a tablespoon of flour.

Okay, a little bit of flour. Sort of, like you want the white flour to keep the creamy look.

You bet. You want a white flour because we are making a creamy sauce. Now that you have got your lobster and shallot cooked in this pan while it is still heated, while the heat is still on, we are going to add our tablespoon of flour. Sprinkle the flour around and mix it around. What we are doing is creating our rue. In the pan, you are going to see it kind of a, your pan is basically, in essence, dry up. The flour is going to suck up the remaining oil and create the rue. Shortly right after that, we are going to add a quarter cup of the fish stock or chicken broth, whichever you got.

You pour that right in there.

Pour it right in there and now you are creating your sauce. By adding the flour first and creating the rue when you bring forward the next ingredient, the broth, that is the thickening, the flour in advance is now the thickening ingredient that creates a creamier, thicker sauce.

Okay. So, when we put in our broth, it really just makes it just right.

You got it.

Instead of trying to dissolve flour in a lot of liquid. Okay, got it.

Turn the heat down now and let it simmer. And our final ingredient, we are going to add about 1/8 cup of the half-and-half, for color. And we have got ourselves the sauce. We still have our cilantro waiting. We do not want to go early with the cilantro because you want the freshness of the cilantro. You do not want to cook it down.

Okay, so we do not want it to.

We are going to add that right at the end.

Okay. So, that is the last thing.

So, we have got the sauce. Now, if you did not time your sauce with the pasta, you can slide the saucepan off the heat, turn the heat to very low. Just let it sit while you finish the pasta. That is not going to be of harm but what you do not want to do is have it on high heat and have the sauce evaporating. Just maintain a warmth to the sauce while you finish your pasta. The water should be definitely boiling by now. We are going to add our 4-6 ounces of pasta to the water. As we have talked about before, you are going to follow the directions in the box. You will heat pasta up until it is al dente. What you want to do there is just basically test a couple of noodles.

So, we will just pick a few noodles out?

Yes. Whenever you are cooking the pasta, obviously they are very hard going in the water. As time goes, about 8-10 minutes go by, you are going to see much more softening in the pasta and the best way to test it I think, for anybody's standpoint, is to pull a noodle or two out and take a bite of them. If it still got a crunchy interior, they are not done.

Okay. Al dente means?

Just done.

Just barely cooked.

You do not want to overcook your pasta anytime because they become sticky. When your pasta is in the boiling water, I like to just move it around on occasion every a couple of minutes. Just take your spoon and start keeping it from sticking together. We have our sauce in the large skillet. We have got our pasta cooking. Then we are going to drain our pasta, drain the water when the pasta is done. We are going to drain the water in the sink and then we are going to add that pasta right to the sauce in the pan.

Okay. So, we are not even be using up a lot of the pans to make it.

No. This is a nice, clean effort, so we are just going to add it right to the pan. Basically, you are folding the pasta into the sauce. Folding is just gently putting the pasta into the sauce. Our final step, we are going to add our cilantro. We are leaving the cilantro, in essence, raw with the warm sauce. We are going to mix it in there nicely but it was not in the cooking process, so we still have some real vibrant green to it, to create green and white creamy color sauce when it is done. And you can see the lobster, you can smell it.

You can smell the cilantro.

As always, we have got a bunch of cilantro. So, take a few sprigs of the extra cilantro and garnish your bowls.

Okay, around the sides. We are going to put this in a lightly lifted bowl, not just on the plate?

If you have pasta bowls, they are preferred. Not everyone does. Pasta bowls are nice, wide, and very shallow bowls. Kind of, if you are in an Italian restaurant, you will see some elegant, some very wide rims, and those are neat bowls, not every has them. So, if you do use plates, you want a plate with a rim on it because it is a saucy pasta. It is not a runny pasta per se but if you have one of those plates with nice 1-inch rim around it, work okay. Nice, flat, shallow bowls will be the best.

And we will garnish that.

Garnish with a little of cilantro leaves. Set that out on the table. Nice chilled chardonnay. I would enjoy the pasta together before I went down to one knee. Just because I am such a food guy, I want to make sure I do not want to let food go to waste. I figure that it is time to eat, bring the question, get your answer, and then out comes the champagne and the dessert.

Sounds just like an easy, elegant. To me, it is an elegant dinner. It is going to look very sophisticated when it is all done, isn't it?

Yes. It is sophisticated yet simple meal. You got lobster. Here we go again, once you go for the right ingredients, you are half way home without even getting started. She just sees and hears lobster, her eyes light up and it is already considered, "Oh, wow! This is something special."

Something special. A special dinner for a special day. Lobster.

Sounds like I have been popping this question all the time.

I know. So, it is called the lobster.

We are just going to call it a Lobster Fusilli.

Lobster Fusilli. Okay. That is awesome. Thank you so much. That is a great, great recipe and I am always starving when we get through talking because I am always totally interested in all of the meals and everything. Thank you so much. So, anybody thinking of popping the question, now you have got the perfect meal to do it. This is Dr. Letitia Wright for IDC Dating.com. IDC Dating.com is where we are creating multicultural relationships everyday. Thanks for joining us. Remember, ignoring one's conscience is neither safe nor right and I will be talking to you next time.

• Should You Settle In Your Love Life?
• Family Matters: Support and Understanding
• "You Need To Be Happy Alone Before You Date"... TRUTH OR MYTH?
• How to Maintain a Strong Relationship
• Foodie Adventures: Exploring Ethnic Restaurants