OMG OMG Lobster.
Enough said. On sale this week at Shaws: LOBSTER! Yum. It’s even more yum because it’s $4.99/lb.
This is possibly the best and most delicious sale I’ve encountered yet.
I’ll be the first to admit, I was a little scared to cook lobster, but Alton Brown’s episode of Good Eats—Crustacian Nation inspired me to give it a try. I must say, thank the gods for Alton Brown, because without him, I would probably have never tried to cook this most delicious of sea creatures.
Honestly, I suggest you watch the episode before diving in with this delicacy of the deep. Alton (whom, by the way, I met this weekend at his book signing in Brookline!) gives a detailed and scientific explanation of how to prepare lobster.
Crustacean Nation Part 1
Crustacean Nation Part 2
On Tuesday of this week, I ventured to Shaws with my good friend, Chris, with one thing in mind: Lobster. As Alton says it is important to choose a lobster with a hard shell rather than a soft one. Soft-shelled lobsters have recently molted and you’ll be paying mostly for water weight rather than meat.
I don’t think I know anyone who has a lobster pot and I certainly don’t have a lobster pot. Also, Shaws doesn’t sell them. Nor does it sell claw crackers. This seems to pose a problem, but with a little imagination, it is possible to steam lobsters without any of the proper tools.
We used a big wok. Put some water in the bottom of the wok (about an inch) and put a cooling rack in the water. This keeps the lobsters out of the water (so they don’t get waterlogged) but allows them to be directly in the steam. It is also important to cover the wok so the steam doesn’t escape. Because we couldn’t find a lid big enough, we just used tin foil. We laid two sheets across the wok and pressed the edges around it with oven mits.
When the water began to boil, Gertrude and Eugene (our lobsters) went into the steam. Making sure that they stay covered and that the steam stays in the pan/pot, leave them in for the proper cooking time. We left them in for 7 minutes because they were each about 1.25 pounds.
After cooking they’ll be red and their tails will curl under. We tried to straighten out the tails after cooking, but it didn’t do much. Fortunately, the curl of the tails doesn’t affect taste.
Chris and I made some clarified butter. It’s really easy to do: you just boil butter. Once it bubbles for a while, you scrape off the gross white part and you’re left with clear, yellow butter. You can refrigerate it and use it later if you want, or you can immediately use it for dipping your lobster.
After some failed attempts at shell cracking with a can opener, tongs, and hammer, Chris and I learned that you can just use a chef’s knife to cut through the lobster’s shell. You can also use kitchen shears to cut down the claws to get the meat out.
Don’t eat the nasty guts that are in the abdomen of the lobster. They’re garbage. We just ate the tails, claws and legs and it was plenty of food.
My only complaint about the lobster process is that the claw meat did not fill up the claw shell. I’m still honestly sure why this happened, but both Chris and I found meat that was about 1/3 the size of the claw when we actually cracked it open. The tails, however, were delicious.
I suggest you take this opportunity to try cooking lobster while it’s cheap! Again, you may find the video helpful (I certainly did!). It helps tell you the right way to prepare lobster, how to choose a lobster, humane ways to kill a lobster, how to make stuffed lobster, etc…
Happy Cooking!!
Currently cooking to:
This is actually totally unrelated to this week’s food. Fail on my part. I though about posting Beyond the Sea or something, but that would be too literal, wouldn’t it. I also thought about posting Swimming in the Flood by Passion Pit, but lobsters crawl along the ocean floor, so both the action and location were wrong.
I figure that this Tori Amos song is just swanky enough that it could be fun for a romantic lobster dinner for two. Dim the lights, throw on some 20′s style songs and pretend that you’re on a fancy night out on the town. You can even wear a boa, I don’t mind.
October 17, 2009 at 6:14 am |
Awesome blog!
I thought about starting my own blog too but I’m just too lazy so, I guess I‘ll just have to keep checking yours out.
LOL,
October 20, 2009 at 11:14 am |
[...] I can’t help it. I like pretty desserts. I did this with my friend Chris (remember him from the lobster post). We meant to color the frosting between layers red and then frost the cake white, but we forgot to [...]