Boiled Lobster
Ingredients
Directions
Boil
Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil and add a handful of coarse sea salt.
Once boiling hard, add the lobster, having first removed the gills and tied the claws together with twine.
Boil for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the size of the lobster.
Remove the lobster.
Place it on its claws to drain and cool.
Prepare the meat
Wipe the lobster dry.
Discard the head and small claws.
Split open the body and tail.
Crack the claws to extract the meat.
Remove the sand pouch near the throat.
Remove any tough, feathery particles under the shell.
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 body of the dish and supplies the sweet, tender meat.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the boiling water so the lobster meat is lightly flavoured.
The step that matters
Boil for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the size of the lobster. Overcooking toughens lobster protein and makes the meat rubbery, while undercooking leaves it unsafe to eat. Size determines how long the shell and meat take to reach a firm, opaque state, so timing should follow the lobster's weight.
“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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