The Best Lobster Dishes You'll Probably Ever Eat
Real lobster fans carry National Lobster Day celebrations into the summer. Face it — you need more than a day to celebrate this crustacean.
Lobster isn't limited to fancy dinners and seaside getaways. Eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Switch up your lobster eating game with these life-altering, sumptuous recipes. Yes, they're that good.
1. Lobster Eggs Benedict
If salmon can play on eggs benedict, so can lobster. Pick up a pack of pre-cooked lobster and layer the eggs on top of the lobster on top of the English muffin. Placing the eggs on a paper towel first will help remove extra water. Spoon two tablespoons of Hollandaise sauce on top. Make your own sauce by whisking egg yolks with lemon juice and sugar, adding in melted butter and microwaving it in under a minute.
2. Chili Lobster
You've probably heard of the Singaporean chili crab, but what about chili lobster? All you do is substitute cooked lobster for the crab, and mix oyster sauce, ketchup, soy sauce, tamarind paste and chili paste together, and thin that with water. Ketchup is a common Singaporean ingredient in the chili sauce traditionally. In a wok, cook scallions, ginger, chile and garlic in oil, adding the lobster and the sauce. Garnish with cilantro.
3. Lobster with Mushrooms in Cream
Steam lobsters on high heat until the claws turn red and the tails cook through — at least eight minutes or use cooked lobster meat if easier. Set aside lobster meat, and saute mushrooms in four tablespoons of butter. Make a cream sauce with the butter, milk, half-and-half and flour, adding in Sherry, nutmeg and cayenne.
To thicken the cream sauce without creating lumps, try dusting a little flour into the pan at a time and using a fork to mix — like making gravy in the morning for your biscuits.
4. Lobster Grilled Cheese
Get more mileage out of your fresh Maine Lobster by making a golden, toasted lobster grilled cheese sandwich. It works for breakfast, lunch and dinner. One pound of meat makes four sandwiches. Butter bread and layer in the lobster, sharp cheddar cheese and fresh herbs, such as chives, tarragon and parsley. Put it in the pan and toast it up!
Substitute different cheeses and customize it with bacon and tomato. Try a smoky or pepper jack cheese.
5. Steamed Lobster with Lemon-Butter Sauce
You're going to need two big pots of salted, boiling water. Cook lobster until the shells turn pink and lobsters cook through. Melt butter inside a smaller saucepan. Add herbs and lemon juice, seasoning the mix with salt and pepper. You can also brown the butter if you prefer a nuttier taste. Serve the lobster with the lemon wedges and lemon butter.
Add in your favorite bread, coleslaw and white wine, and you've made a beautiful meal to share with your family.
6. Lobster Gnocchi
Combining lobster with pasta is too good to pass up. Switch up your noodles by making lobster gnocchi — gnocchi is a type of potato pasta. Make yours a day ahead, freeze and cook from the frozen state for a better taste. All you really need to make gnocchi is potatoes, all-purpose flour and lemon zest. You hardly mix gnocchi at all. You can always buy it at the store, though.
Cook gnocchi in a cast iron pan over medium heat in butter, adding in the cooked lobster meat. Serve with a summer salad of mixed greens and ripe tomatoes. Make a delicious dressing by mixing mustard, vinegar, shallots, salt and pepper together, slowing adding in the oil to let it emulsify. Serve the dressing at room temperature.
Lobsters are hardy, invertebrate crustaceans. Their ten walking legs carry them far, but a truck carries them to the market where you're waiting with your favorite lobster recipe in hand.
You're not heartless. A lobster can live a good, long 50 years, and you appreciate the lobster for sustaining yours with such sumptuous flavor. You know better than to let any bit of lobster meat go to waste, and these recipes will help you eat more lobster this summer. Lobster consumption used to be a mark of poverty, but that all changed in the middle of the 1800's. From bisque to sandwich and pasta, there's nothing you can't do with lobster!