How to Boil a Lobster

Ingredients:
lobster (live, moving around, with clear looking eyes)
water
salt

Directions:

Keep the lobster chilled (and alive) until you go to boil it. Fill your largest stockpot with water to the half way point and add salt.


Cover and bring water to a boil. Use tongs to drop the lobster into the water. Loosely cover. Boil 1 lb* lobsters for 15 minutes.

Lobster should be bright red when it is fully cooked. Eat as is or use in your favorite recipe.


*1 lb is pretty standard sized for lobsters, but if you are lucky enough to get a big one, add 5 minutes for every 1/2 lb to you cooking time.

My thoughts:

We were lucky enough to be given a fabulous Le Creuset lobster pot when we got married a couple of years ago but have rarely ever actually used it for cooking lobster. Generally we make stock, gumbo or chili in it, so when we can actually use it for lobster it is pretty special. Growing up in Baltimore, I am more familiar with crabs than lobster which seemed so big and daunting but is actually much easier to eat than streamed crabs. Just remove and crack open both parts of the claw (nutcrackers work just as well as fancy lobster crackers), see if you can get any meat out of the legs, then bend the tail until it cracks and peel the shell off the meat and you're done. And unlike crab, the meat is big and in one piece. Much easier to eat but less of an event. Anyway, I got 2 fresh, live lobsters overnighted to me from Sagamore Lobster and they were so, so good. Fresh tasting, wild caught and the most lobster-tasting lobster I have ever had if that makes any sense. I am already dreaming of the next time we boil some lobster. Lobster this good is great plain, but if you aren't planning on cutting it up to use in a recipe and are a dipper, heating lemon juice, minced shallots and butter together makes a great dipping sauce.