Lobster

I'm going to be horribly cliche here. I went to Maine, so I cooked some lobstahs. Maybe it's not cliche. Maybe there's a good reason for it.

In any case, for a lobster rookie, cooking them is not a difficult task. Alarming, maybe... but difficult? Hardly! As long as you have the right equipment.

First of all, you have to go to your family's cottage in Maine and drag out the old lobster pot. It's huge. About four times the size of a regular stockpot. Lobsters don't like to go in pots and will try to sabotage your efforts, but if the pot is large enough they really don't have much of a choice. If your family doesn't have a cottage in Maine, sucks to be you. you can probably still cook a lobster if you can find the right pot (make sure it has a lid).



Your next step, obviously, is to get ahold of some lobsters. One lobster per lobster-eater is the way to go. Unless you have two very small dogs who plan on eating lobster as well, in which case they can split one. To get lobsters, go to Simpson's Seafood off Route 1 just south of Wiscasset. It's the home of Superfresh. If you can't get there, they ship.



After you get your lobsters, what's left to do but roll up your sleeves and get down to business?





LOBSTER

1-5 hard-shell lobsters
~1 tbsp good sea salt
2 oz (half a stick) butter
4-6 slices fresh, crusty bread
1-2 lemons in wedges

1. Put a few inches of water in the bottom of your lobster pot. 2-3 inches should do it. Put it over high heat and cover the pot so it heats faster. We want this sucker hot.

2. Put the butter on a low simmer in a little pan. Instead of clarifying it, brown it. Over the course of lobster-cooking, you should be able to easily achieve this goal. But don't let it get black, or it will taste kind of like burnt butter. Or a lot like burnt butter. It will take a long time to brown if you keep it on low heat, which you should do. The butter is browned when... well, when you see that it's starting to brown. Not that hard.

3. When your pot of water comes to a boil, add the salt and stir it to dissolve. You don't want undissolved salt sitting on the bottom of your pan, as it will corrode aluminum and damage stainless steel.





4. As soon as the pot comes to a rolling, hardy boil, it's ready for lobsters.



Take them out of whatever they're in (you can leave the rubber bands on their claws) and drop them right in headfirst. Quickly. The shock of going from cold to boiling hot kills them instantly. Cover the pot immediately.



5. Leave the lobsters in their bath for 20 minutes. You may hear a high-pitched whine at some point. No, the lobsters aren't screaming in pain. They are dead, and steam is whistling from out their carapace. Kind of like a kettle.



6. While the lobsters are steaming, slice up your bread and wedge up your lemons. You'll be glad you did.



7. After your time is up, turn off the heat to the lobster pot and fish them out with tongs. Place them directly in a cold-water bath or colander with running cold water. This stops the cooking process and allows you to handle them.



8. You might want to put the cooked lobsters on a rimmed baking sheet or pan. When you rip them apart to eat them, they release a lot of delicious lobster broth. But as good as it is, you probably don't want it all over your table or shirt.





9. Eat up. You might need some tools. Something to crack the tougher parts (like the claws), and something to pick out the more delicate parts (like the legs). These help:



You can eat just about anything on a lobster. If I were you, I probably wouldn't eat the shell. Or the "vein" (intestine) running down through the tail. The green goopy stuff is the tomalley (liver), and it's delicious. Suck the juice from the legs. And anything else that gushes out when you rip something off.

Due to the distraction of the author during feeding time, she is unable to bring you pictures documenting the best ways to eat a lobster.

I will tell you, though, dip the lobster meat into the browned butter and squeeze a little lemon on it. Also dip the bread in the browned butter. You're in for a treat. But all you'll have to show for it is a bunch of mangled lobster carapace pieces. C'est la vie.

PROS: easy. cheap ($4-$5 a pound). deeeeeelicious.
CONS: it stares at you before and after you cook it (but it doesn't judge.) Also, lobsters are detritivores, which means they eat whatever's lying around. And you are what you eat...


PS: I got a new Canon 50D. I loves it.