Boiled Lobster
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the lobster
Choose a heavy live lobster.
Boil a large pot of water with a handful of coarse sea salt.
Boil and cool
Plunge the lobster head first into the boiling water and boil for 20 minutes or until the shell turns red.
Remove the lobster and let it cool slightly.
Pick the meat
Break off the claws and tail, and remove the soft fins near the body.
Use a can-opener to break the shell and access the flesh.
Save the green fat, coral, and white curd-like substance.
Remove all flesh from the claws and body, cutting it into half-inch pieces.
Split the tail shell, discard the intestine, and save the flesh.
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
- Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks in boiling water.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the boiling water so the lobster meat is lightly seasoned from the outside.
The step that matters
Plunge the lobster head first into the boiling water. The water must return to a full boil before the lobster goes in, and the lobster must be fully submerged. Cooking in water that is not at a rolling boil lengthens cooking and can leave the meat unevenly cooked.
“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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