Grilling tails has become a common preparation for people who don't like seafood but do like the idea of eating something as symbolic of extravagance as lobster; grilled lobster is wonderful if you enjoy chicken, but enjoy chicken even more when you've traded your child's college education for it. These are the most popular methods for cooking lobster not because they yield the best results, but because they are simple and involve no technique more complicated than putting the lobster tail in a hot place, setting a timer, and then not being abducted by aliens in the interval before it beeps; this way, when the lobster turns out disappointing, you can easily shift the blame to your clock, and bash it to atoms with a sledgehammer.The proper way to cook lobster tails — apparently, and I'm in the middle of trying it right now — involves something called a beurre monté.
१० जून, २०१४
"Inexplicably, the standard method for cooking lobster tails is to steam them..."
"...which yields a boring, flabby, bland result that tastes like nothing so much as nothing."
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I can't read that bullshit. What an annoying twat.
Whether boiled/steamed and dipped in butter or just cooked his way they're both basically just butter sponges...
I'm not a very good test of anything gustatory.
I have lost most of my senses of smell and taste (and the doctors cannot tell me why!).
But this heavily buttered method produced a tender, delicate meal.
I'd paid $12 for one small, frozen lobster tail, which in the past I had thought wasn't worth buying -- it's frozen, after all.
But I think if you take a day to defrost it in the refrigerator and then bring it to room temperature and get it out of the shell, you've got a small slab of sea-meat that is either worth devoting a stick of butter to or not.
I've been on a low-carb diet for more than 2 years, and I'm looking for variety, which is especially hard, given my sensory limitation.
Would I fool with a beurre monté again? Maybe!
I think it is the right method for handling this expensive little strip of lobster.
@Lord Ben If you really believe that, you should buy chicken breasts, which, as a vehicle for butter, are less good than good bread.
I'm being low carb, so I don't eat bread (except on vacation), so I'm free to drink butter.
I'm also experimenting with making vanilla ice cream (with artificial sweetener, heavy cream, and vanilla), and we are in love with this machine.
Given the cost of lobster tail, when I buy lobster I buy whole living ones and steam the whole thing.
Very nice and easy too, but possibly not available in Wisconsin?
ITA -- I poached lobster tails (yes,frozen -- I live in AZ!) for our surf-and-turf Christmas day dinner last year. I have enjoyed many lobster preparations, and steamed and grilled lobsters myself, before, but those lobster tails were among the best I have ever eaten. I would do it again in similar circumstances, meaning both the money and the time were available.
If you like butter, Hollandaise sauce uses a lot of it and is great on just about anything grilled, poached seafood or (of course) eggs.
But this isn't about pouring butter over the lobster. It's about poaching the lobster in a whisked butter bath. It's the cooking method.
"Very nice and easy too, but possibly not available in Wisconsin?"
Of course, they are available, but I'm not bringing live lobsters into my house and slaughtering them. That's just not going to happen.
Lobster tails? No big deal ... we just bread 'em and quickly deep fry 'em.
In South Florida, their price is not nearly so dear
I'm a fan of Cook's Illustrated -- cooksillustrated.com -- which is an outfit that does a lot of testing of how to cook something. On a recent show they cooked lobster, which you can get to on their site -- a video exists, too -- but you have to take a trial membership or be a member.
Burneko has to write in the obnoxious Deadspin style, but I've found several of his recipes to be excellent. The crab cake recipes is great and I feel it is worth putting less than half a sleeve of saltines in a pound of crab, even if I am going low carb. This looks good as well. I can't wait for shad roe to come around next spring to try this method.
The writing style is absurdly padded...
Christopher Hitchens famously said that lobster is one of life's four most overrated things. At least I think it was him. I have tried three of the four, including lobster, and I think he was right.
"Of course, they are available, but I'm not bringing live lobsters into my house and slaughtering them. That's just not going to happen."
You don't need to slaughter them: Put them in a big pot with a cover and a little water on the bottom. Turn the stove to high and leave the room (if you have to).
Also, the article claims the tails are better tasting than the claws. In what universe is that true?
Don't get me wrong, they are both really nice and the meat is easier to extract from the tail but not tastier and not more tender than the claws.
One thing I don't like about his recipes (and many others) is that they don't give exact temperatures for an instant read thermometer. He gives a temp for the butter, but not for the lobster. I think I'd go for about 150.
Getting them into the pot can be a problem. Cf Annie Hall.
BDNYC....
In a 2006 New Yorker profile, Christopher Hitchens said “the four most overrated things in life were champagne, lobsters, anal sex, and picnics.”
"I have lost most of my senses of smell and taste..."
I'm very sorry that has happened to you, my condolences.
Do you mostly seek out strong scents and flavors now? Has texture become more important to you?
@Lord Ben If you really believe that, you should buy chicken breasts, which, as a vehicle for butter, are less good than good bread
Instead of any sort of butter sponge I'd instead get some raw shrimp and boil them in **VERY** heavily seasoned, with Old Bays, salt water for 4 minutes. Great flavor.
That's how I take my seafood urges. A good jumbo shrimp is better than lobster imho.
I made it about half-way through the article and gave up. As the professor said, it is "absurdly padded" and I am not all that into lobster anyway. Crawfish is way better.
Big taster difference between cold water lobster and warm water lobster. I prefer cold water lobster.
"This is perhaps a little bit hyperbolic. Lobster is very rarely bad. What it very often is, though, is boring and unexceptional enough to make its cost seem absurd and offensive, and its purchaser seem stupid and wasteful."
This is how I feel about filet mignon. I'm told I just haven't had it prepared correctly, but, well... if it's not being done right at these steakhouses, then it's not being done right anywhere else.
Can't comment on lobster; can't eat shellfish without barfing. And ironically, it was on a dish which included lobster that I discovered that food intolerance. The hard way. The very memorably hard way. :(
Ann Althouse said...
...but I'm not bringing live lobsters into my house and slaughtering them. That's just not going to happen.
I would love to see a BloggingHeads with you talking about some subject, and Meade visible in the background slaughtering lobster.
A good jumbo shrimp is better than lobster imho.
There is a shrimp called a 'royal red' that is pretty fantastic. It is my new favorite. I plan to eat lots when i'm on the coast in a few weeks.
It sounds like this method is a recommendation to do some extra work in order to preserve the illusion and get some pleasure and fulfillment out of eating lobster.
"I'm not bringing live lobsters into my house and slaughtering them. That's just not going to happen."
I've never understood the squeamishness- it's just a giant bug, isn't it? Are you also squeamish about killing insects that get where you don't want them?
What about those restaurants that keep them alive in a tank, and allow you to select the one you want to eat- is that just as bad, or is it OK if someone else slaughters them for you?
In any case, if the lobster is just going into a salad or soup or something then you may as well use the fake stuff, as it's unlikely you'll taste the difference.
(Although I suppose one wouldn't want to eat something one identifies with.
"I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
says Prufrock in the T.S. Eliot poem)
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