Lobster Spec-Tac-U-Laaarrrrr: The Main Event

In our home, lobster is an anytime-event, but we do try to make it an event. A lobster dinner for eight cannot be anything but an event in our apartment, but we had such fun. We generally steam our lobsters, so the cooking involves putting on to boil big pots half-full of water. When they (finally!) come to a boil, in go the lobsters. There is a science to this, and I rely upon the man of the house to monitor all whole-lobster cooking, as he truly is a master.

For this event, we separated lobsters; the biggest goes into the water first, claws and head down, and the lid immediately goes back on the pot. Because we were cooking eight lobsters, we used two pots and put in all the lobsters over the course of about four minutes. From the time the first one went in they were in for about 14 minutes. While they are on, make sure the lids stay securely on top of them (this is how they can steam!) and you also want to put on your butter to melt over low heat. We always use a combination of salted and unsalted; how much you'll need is a matter of how you serve it and personal preference. For eight people, I used six sticks so everyone could have an individual dish of butter; it didn't all get used, but this way everyone could reach his or her own! Also make sure you put a colander of some sort in the sink. We tend to dump the pots as we can, and use tongs to get the lobsters out quickly.

Once those hot lobsters hit the sink, start running cold water over them. This serves multiple purposes. It stops the cooking process, so they taste sweet, soft and succulent (and are NOT chewy, gummy or some other weird texture!). It also helps the meat loosen from the shell. Finally, the cold water makes the lobsters cool enough to handle. Don't worry about cooling them down too much - you won't. But if they're not cooled at all, no one will be able to handle them to take them apart to enjoy!

This time, we also snipped off the tips of the claw shells, and let the water drain from them. I learned this trick at Mabel's Lobster Claw this summer in Maine. It made a world of difference in the amount of water in the lobster (as that steam condenses back into liquid form!) at the table. We served a platter of lobsters, eight little bowls of butter and a heaping plate of corn "grilled" in the oven as a last-minute emergency solution when we couldn't get to our building's grills. The feast was fabulous, and every morsel was deliciously devoured. You would think we couldn't eat any more.