To Boil a Lobster
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Fill a pot with water and bring it to a boil.
Add a handful of coarse sea salt to the boiling water.
Boil and drain
Tie the lobster's claws together and plunge it into the boiling water.
Boil the lobster for 30 to 60 minutes, depending on its size.
Remove the lobster and place it face down in a sieve to drain.
Extract the meat
Once cool, split open the body and tail, and crack the claws to extract the meat.
Discard the long fingers and the head.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Lobster
- Forms the main protein; cooking in boiling water firms the flesh until it turns opaque and easy to separate.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the cooking water so the lobster meat picks up a mild seasoning as it cooks.
The step that matters
Boil the lobster for 30 to 60 minutes, depending on its size. Overcooking toughens lobster protein and makes the meat rubbery, while undercooking leaves it translucent and unsafe. Size sets the time, so a larger lobster needs the longer end of the range.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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