My girlfriend and I want to try cooking lobster, but we’re clueless. A few questions:
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How do you cook a lobster?
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What side dishes go well with a lobster cooked that way?
Thanks in advance for any help you all might be able to give.
The easiest way to cook a lobster is to steam or boil it. Get either a large pot of water boiling, then drop one or two in there (while still alive.) Steaming is easier, since it needs less water. Get a couple inches of water in a pot, then put something on the bottom to lift the lobster above the water (like a steamer basket or some smooth river rocks, like Alton Brown.) Put the lobsters in, lid it up, and cook.
Boiling them will take about five minutes for a one pounder, and 8-10 minutes for a two pounder (or two total pounds.) Start timing from when the water comes back to a boil. For steaming, it will be one to two minutes less.
You can also make stuffed lobster tails like so.
bouv beat me to it! As he said, steaming’s the easiest way to cook a lobster at home. Baked stuffed lobster’s an entirely different story, however…cough
Side dishes should be simple. At most restaurants around here they limit sides to corn on the cob in the summer; otherwise baked potato or pilaf. Maybe a pre-lobster green salad.
Here’s a thread about cooking live lobsters. Lots of different techniques and opinions.
I don’t eat lobster (they remind me of insects on steroids), but I’ve always heard they “scream” when you put them in boiling water. Any truth to that?
Maybe mentally. I don’t eat lobster either but we’ve had them a lot at my house since I grew up in a fishing community. I’ve never heard a peep out of them.
This news has a calming effect on me. Thanks.
I think it’s the steam escaping through openings in the shell; kind of like a tea kettle.
No, they don’t scream. They don’t have vocal chords.
I’m not sure what people who say they’ve heard them scream are hearing. Some say it’s maybe just steam escaping through a small hole in the lobster, but personally I’ve never heard a peep.
Anyway. . .I’m from Maine originally and have a lot of experience eating lobster. We used to eat lobster with “steamers” (clams) and corn on the cob if we were doing it outdoors in the summer.
When we eat lobster at home, I prefer to just eat lobster, sometimes two. I like to sit there, just me and my lobster and eat every possible piece of meat from him, slowly and deliciously. I have a bowl of melted butter, and white wine.
I don’t even wipe my hands until I’m all done. My wine glass looks horrible by the end of eating.
Oh, and we always steamed them. We had a lobster pot, essentially a great big double-boiler. Sometimes we would put wine, salt, pepper, and maybe carrots, onions and a bay leaf in the boiling water. But sometimes we just have the water.
Make sure your pot is big enough. The first time I cooked lobster I stuffed 4 1-pounders into a pot that wasn’t really big enough. I left the kitchen for a few minutes and heard some clattering and then a crash - I ran back to the kitchen to find that the lobsters had knocked the lid off the pot and were flailing their arms around angrily. I slapped the lid back on and held it in place 'til they stopped moving.
It was horrifying but I got over it.
Side dishes - in general I keep it simple. A dish of melted butter and a green salad. Or steamed potatoes & corn on the cob.
The one and only time I boiled up a couple of lobsters I served them with melted butter and lemon wedges, and with sides of icy Sam Adams Boston lager and a cole slaw dressed with oil and vinegar. The tart slaw cut the buttery richness of the lobster just right.
My family used to have stuffed quohogs ( a type of big clam). The meat would be removed from the shell, chopped up, mixed with a sorta-spicy stuffing, then put back in the shell. Heat 'em up in the toaster oven for a few minutes, mmmmm good. Great appetizer for lobster.
Of course, you probably can’t get them where you are.
Damn. Now I want one. And I can’t get them here in Philadelphia.
mmmmm…now my mouth is watering!
Motorgrrl, that story made me laugh. When I was younger we used to put the lobsters on the floor to see how the cats would react.
Carl, never forget when we had some vistors from Philly, and we went out to my favorite local clam shack…we had to explain to them what quahogs were!
Lobsters are a rare gift from nature in that they are a top-level delicacy and yet they are incredibly easy to make. Others have already given the techniques but all that eventually means is that you boil a big pot of water, take the lobster(s) out of the bag, and drop them in until they turn red. They don’t seem to be overly sensitive to how long they are boiled. A couple of minutes extra doesn’t really hurt. We often have more than one lobster per person and just leave the second ones in the hot water while we eat the first ones. It seems to work fine. Make sure to tilt them around to drain them after they are cooked before you put them on the plate. They can hold water well and it is gross when you first break off the tail and get a gusher.
No truth whatsoever*. However, if you have ESP, they can be know to think, “Man, this sucks.” Lobsters are almost English in thier gift for understatement.
*I used to work in a kitchen that cooked bukoo lobsters every night. Never heard one scream over the chomping of escargot.
The lobster was grand, I boiled it as per bouv’s instructions, with river rocks and all, and I ate it as per Trunk’s. Thanks guys!
I have heard the “scream”, and it sounds like gas escaping from the shell, similar to occasional hissing sounds produced cooking allsorts of things from hot dogs to potatoes.
I know of no reason to suspect that lobsters do not feel pain, nor of any reason such pain should be necessary to inflict, including the calous argument that they taste better if cooked alive. The practical reason to cook them alive is that it is difficult to kill a live, struggling lobster cleanly. I have pithed them with a skewer, which was quicker but I doubt any more comfortable for the lobster. My mother used to set them in warm fresh water for a couple hours which seemed to ‘put them to sleep’. I am not sure if that really is any better for them. Last time I cooked some up I went for the live steam method, figuring it was the quickest way to do the overgrown bugs in.
Dungenous crab on the other hand can be instantly killed with a sharp blow to the underside. Grab the carapace, turn them over in hand, and wack em’ between the legs with a stick. My step dad learned this from some native fisherman he knew.