Haute Cuisine: Lobster Popcorn with Lemon Butter

The Dish: Lobster Popcorn with Lemon Butter Lobster and popcorn both improve with butter, and when you combine all three ingredients, you're on the road to culinary heaven. This labor-intensive dish starts with boiled lobster, which is shocked in an ice bath after cooking. Then the tail is sliced into bite-size medallions. Next, unseasoned, popped popcorn is put through a food processor, half of it fine ground and half rough chopped. The medallions are dredged in flour, dipped in beaten egg and pressed into the popcorn mixture until well coated. After coating, the medallions are chilled for an hour, fried until lightly golden and served on bamboo skewers. Lemon zest and melted butter
provide the perfect dip for the medallions. Heart-healthy? No. Tasty? You betcha.

The Caterer: 121 Inflight Catering, 7 Juliano Dr., Oxford, Conn., (914) 669-8199, www.121inflight.com.

"We're still growing," said Peter DeVito, who co-owns this relative newcomer to business aviation catering with Michelle and Joe Savino. DeVito and the Savinos have worked together since 2000 on restaurant and catering operations, but they launched their in-flight service only two years ago. Home base, Connecticut's Waterbury-Oxford Airport, includes an á lá carte restaurant and 5,000-square-foot catering kitchen. Today, with help from a satellite kitchen in Westchester, N.Y., the business serves 27 airports in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island.