Lobstah Rolls!

I grew up in southeastern Connecticut, and in the summer we would spend a week or two in the Thimble Islands. My folks knew some people who had homes there and for years had been going there to relax, socialize, booze, engage in shenanigans and play their version of Wimbledon known appropriately as Thimbledon. Every night everyone would get together for dinner at one of the main houses. Food was always fresh, from the sweet corn to the steamers. Occasionally lobster would be served and it was a real treat.

Lobster is not for lazy people. Though it is not like eating pig intestines or raw camel hump, it is in many ways still adventurous eating. I loved being able to use the claw crackers to get to the tender claw meat, then dipping the claw in the butter and throwing it down the hatch. Lobster is one of those foods that, for me, is all about the process. If you are patient and have some skill you are rewarded with a full and fulfilling meal. But I get that some people find the process to be dull and perhaps repulsive. The Mrs finds it to be the latter. 

These days I don't get lobster all too often. I spent nearly 10 years in California and spiney lobster is not Maine lobster no more than shrimp is the same as crawfish (San Diegans: stop fooling yourselves). However, every year on my birthday, my Mom and Aunt send me a LobsterGram. It is easily my most favorite tradition in our family. And while I have enjoyed the lobsters traditionally: boil, crack, dip and eat. In more recent years, I have gravitated to the lobster roll. I love sandwiches.

The lobster roll is everything cracked lobster is with a little punch. It's a ton of delicious lobster meat, mixed with a little dressing and stuffed in a traditional New England hot dog bun (similar to the standard hot dog bun, but the sides are trimmed). Lobster rolls are done differently at a lot of places, no major differences mind you, just little nuances making it their own.

Below is my recipe, so hurry up and go get your Maine lobster...I'll wait...

...okay, that was long enough.

The Lobster Roll

     
Ingredients (makes 4 STUFFED lobster rolls):

2 Maine Lobsters (about 1-1 1/2 lbs each) steamed and meat pulled
Juice from 1/2 of a lemon
2 ribs of celery roughly chopped
dash or two of dill
2 tblspn of mayonnaise
2 tblspn of melted butter
4 Traditional New England hot dog buns (or potato bread hot dog buns with sides just cut off)
Salt and Pepper to taste

1. Get a large pot (I use an 8 quart, and do one lobster at a time) and fill with salted water about a quarter of the way. Turn stove to medium high and cover.

2. Prep lobster. Now there are one of two ways to do this: the disgusting, albeit humane way, and the easy though supposedly you make the lobsters suffer. Since I go the prior route, that's what I will go over. The other option is to toss them into the boiling water, and no I have never heard them scream.

To prep your lobster, you need to humanely kill it. The best way to do this quickly and painlessly is to find where there heads meets the body (there is a somewhat obvious "x" marks the spot in the makeup of the shell), push a knife through and pull it downward through the front of the head. This supposedly severs the main nerve and killing the lobster instantly. Though it does not kill the body as you will definitely see some movement from the tail and claws. This is also not a clean or easy way to dispatch of the lobster. I prep with my chopping block wrapped with paper towels. I also make sure my knife is sharp, as in really sharp; that lobster shell is no joke. The first time I did this, I don't think I did the lobster any great service, and I have now started apologizing to every lobster I eat just before doing this deed.

Now, drop your lobster into your pot, cover and cook for about 7-8 minutes (you can also boil or bake, but here were are steaming the lobster). The lobster is ready when you can relatively easily pop out one of the antennae.

3. Let your lobster cool for a few minutes unless you enjoy burning your hands, in which case, enjoy. Or if you are a normal human being and enjoy having fingerprints, now is the time to prep your dressing and your buns (if you don't have access to traditional New England buns).

For the dressing:

Mix the mayo, juice of half a lemon, dill and celery in a bowl. Salt and pepper to taste (I use about a 1/2 tsp of both).

For the buns:

I use Martin's potato bread hot dog buns, but any potato bread or standard hot dog bun will do. Remove  just a small portion of the outside of the roll with a knife, leaving a "crust" around the bun. Brush the outsides of the buns with half of the melted butter and stick into the oven at 450 for 3-4 minutes or until there is a light browning on the bread.

4. Now that the Lobster had had time to cool, time to get to cracking! There is no real wrong way to do this, just don't rush and be sure to scoop every piece of meat out. I start by tearing the body from the tail. I then tear off the fins from the tail and, using a fork inserted where the fins were, push the tail meat out. The tail is similar to that of shrimp and you will need to cut a small slit down the back to remove any of our lobsters last meal. Roughly chop the tail into 6 pieces.

Move on to the claws. I like to start from the claws and work backwards. First, pull the "thumb" of the claw from the "mitt" (not technical names, but what I've always called them) and remove the meat from there. Be sure to empty any moisture from the mitt now to make the next step cleaner. Either using a lobster cracker or the back of a chefs knife, crack the "mitt" and remove the meat from there. Now crack and remove the meat from the knuckle and the forearm.

5. Roughly chop the meat, leaving good size portions of the claws intact.

6. Place all your meat into a bowl, mix in remaining melted butter and throw in dressing. Now would be a good time to taste if you need any more salt or pepper.

7. If all is good, get your buns ready and stuff them FULL. Grab a bottle of a good beer and enjoy!

Aluminum Chef San Diego

Laundry.  I hate it.  It is a never ending battle and as I don't wish to parade my own or my kids twigs and berries before my neighbors, I do it...but not happily.  However, the one thing that doing laundry for four people allows me is plenty of time to nerd out to the Food Network and Cooking Channel while I fold and fold and fold and fold some more.  I watch these programs (Chopped, Everyday Italian, Jamie At Home, Iron Chef America and Pioneer Woman) like other folks watch the news.  I can't tell you what's happening in Russia, how Apple is handling the labor issues in China or what will be done to stop Joseph Kony - though I'm sure I'll read more about it on Facebook from all of my far more socially conscious "friends".  What I can tell you is how to make an amazing monkey bread with five ingredients, how to make roasted tomatillo and citrus salsa, how to trick your kids into eating fish or how to mix up a Charentes Shrub (my favorite beer cocktail).  Yep that's where my life has gotten to, and I'm good with that.

To add to this smorgasbord of gastro-nerdery, I have recently been involved in two friendly cook-offs with some friends of ours.  They both share our love of good food, and we both participate in a local farmers market bag pick up service.  Essentially they have some delicious produce as well as some meats, cheeses, pastas, breads and even some gourmet popcorn (which I think leaves a lot to be desired, but I also don't love popcorn...I know, how un-American of me).  However, I often forget to place my order by Sunday in order to pick up my bag on Thursday.  So this past week, since I remained consistent in nodding off on placing my order, we decided that we would each hit up one of the actual farmer's markets with a budget of thirty dollars.

The last time we did this, I mailed it in.  I tried to make a sausage soufflé and though I had two other dishes planned, I got around to making the food too late and well...I was just lazy.  I know, Cat Cora would beat me with a spatula.  So needless to say, I was beat handily by two delicious courses including a homemade ravioli.

For round two I had to step up my game and in addition I thought it would be fun to photo document the events...or at least the food.

My Menu:

Homemade beet bloody mary
Broiled oro blanco
grass fed beef meatballs filled with cheese curds
eggplant rollotini with parmesan, avocado, oyster mushroom, cheese curd and bacon
Monkey bread with bing cherries and chocolate chips

Harold's Menu (I forget the exact ingredients, so I am trying to remember as much as I can):

Homemade sausage pizza with goat cheese and pesto
Meatball soup with lentil and kale

Oh, and if you're wondering where my kids were, well, my 7 month old was fast asleep and my 2 1/2 year old was too shy to come out and join us.  He does this.  Even with people he has met on many occasions.  I don't get it.  So he stayed in his room, eating his own dinner and watching PBS Kids on the iPad.

Anyhoo..this is sort of how everything came together.

The first thing that should be clear is that I have never done food photography.  There is an art there that I do not yet understand.  But I think we can all agree that this is better than your average Moons Over My-Hammy.  The second thing you may notice is that I sort of forgot to photograph a few items so some were gone (the delicious pizza - see the empty tray above) and some are showing the food half eaten.  What can I say?  Between cooking several dishes, enjoying some cocktails and grubbing up some good food it may have slipped my mind that I was actually trying to capture this event.  Maybe next time.

After the wives got together to decide on a winner it was determined that based on the sheer number of dishes and the cheese filled meatballs that I was the evening's champion (there was also a bit of sympathy voting going on since I lost the first cook off...and I don't mind sympathy votes at all).

So with that being said, this appears to be becoming a regular happening.  I have yet another channel to geek out about food and act like I know what I'm doing when picking out ingredients at the market.  Just this past Sunday while trying to haggle a lobster tail salesman, I let slip that it was for a cook-off challenge hoping that he would give in right then and there.  He didn't.  But he did excitedly ask if I was a chef.  For a short moment I thought about saying yes, but then the thought of bullshitting where I cooked and all of the awards I had won for my Manitoban/Finlandian fusion (not really thought, but am I the only person that thinks this whole "fusion" as a marketing tactic thing has gotten out of hand?)...then I thought better of it.  Nope, just a stay-at-home dad that nerds out to cooking shows; and notice there were no lobster tails in my menu.