<p>Has anyone else noted that lobster prices are way down? My fish monger explained today that there is a record catch combined with the bad economy. Any recipes appreciated!</p>
<p>The best way to cook a lobster:</p>
<p>Take a big pot. </p>
<p>Pile rockweed in it to a height of perhaps 5 inches.</p>
<p>Place lobsters on top of rockweed and cover with more rockweed. </p>
<p>Add a couple of inches of seawater. (Or just plain water if you are not by the sea.) Cover the pot.</p>
<p>Place over fire or other heat source and bring to a boil. Drink Hindoo’s Maker’s Mark while you wait. Make note of when you see steam. After some reasonable amount of time after steam appears (15 or 20 minutes or so), check to see if lobsters look fully cooked (IE, all red). If not, cook for another 5 or 10 minutes while continuing to sip your bourbon and check again.</p>
<p>Your goal is to steam the lobsters in the rockweed; therefore they should be above the level of the water. If you order lobsters by mail from Maine, you can ask them to send you extra rockweed and they will likely do so. If you still don’t have enough, use something like upended metal cans or a pot or pan to elevate the lobsters above the water, and put a bit of rockweed below and on top.</p>
<p>Second best way to cook lobster: fill a very big pot with salted water. Bring to boil. Add lobsters, preferably head first, and clap the lid on. Boil until done, which will depend on size. This method is not only less authentic, but it gives you less time for sipping bourbon.</p>
<p>All other methods of cooking a lobster are bogus. ;)</p>
<p>Oh…Lobster Mac and Cheese. Make a REALLY good homemade mac and cheese and put huge chunks of cooked lobster meat in it…YUM.</p>
<p>when’s dinner???</p>
<p>I’m a big fan of Jasper White’s lobster roll, but I go a little easy on the tarragon:</p>
<p>[The</a> World-Famous Maine Lobster Roll Recipe : : Food Network](<a href=“http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/saras-secrets/the-world-famous-maine-lobster-roll-recipe/index.html]The”>http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/saras-secrets/the-world-famous-maine-lobster-roll-recipe/index.html)</p>
<p>Been cooking my lobsters for years in the microwave using these. Who needs that big old pot of steaming water in the house especially in the summer:</p>
<p>[How</a> the Microwave Lobster Steamer Works](<a href=“http://lovemainelobster.com/howitworks.html]How”>http://lovemainelobster.com/howitworks.html)</p>
<p>My husband recently noticed that lobster tail prices were way down at the Farmer’s Market where he often stops on his way home from work. He picked up lobster tails last week and on Saturday night he made lobster tails for himself, the 2Kids_ and me. He basted them with butter and cooked them in the oven on the broiler and they were absolutely delicious. (And we did have four-cheese mac and cheese as a side dish.)</p>
<p>(Ummm, MySweetBaboo, the microwave method says you start with refrigerated live lobsters - I can’t shake the image of the live lobsters scurrying around, trying to hide in the fridge. “Over here, Larry, behind the broccoli!”)</p>
<p>I’d second using a Jasper White lobster recipe. Look for his cookbook–Lobster at Home.</p>
<p>MM2K, they can run, but they can’t hide. ;)</p>
<p>Addendum to Consolation’s obviously authentice Maine directions :D:</p>
<p>When you think the lobsters might be done, pull on one of the feelers (skinny little things). If it pulls right out, it’s done. If not, steam a few more minutes.</p>
<p>Old technique of DH’s grandmother - time tested. ;)</p>
<p>This is my technique for cooking lobster. Put a big pot of water, turn up the heat, when it boils, throw in the lobster face down, put a top on and run really really fast. :D</p>
<p>had article on lobster with several recipes. I made sauteed lobster with oyster mushrooms and ginger for New Year’s Eve – it was yummy and a big hit. Not too hard either.</p>
<p>My in-laws live on Vinalhaven in Maine, from whence about half of “Maine lobsters” are fished. They brought us FIVE pounds of frozen picked lobster when they came for Thanksgiving, which was generosity beyond belief. Around that time, the NYT did an article on lobster recipes. <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/dining/10appe.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=lobster&st=cse[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/dining/10appe.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=lobster&st=cse</a></p>
<p>My current favorite: lobster chowdah. 1 pound potatoes in 1/2" chunks, 1 qt. half and half (or full cream!), 1 pound lobster chunks. Salt, pepper, and a touch of cayenne.</p>
<p>If I had live lobster: steamed, cleaned, and dipped in butter or seasoned olive oil or fresh garlic mayonnaise.</p>
<p>Wow! Can’t wait to start cooking the newly affordable lobster, especially with the full cream! Hey, the French are slim!!</p>
<p>We just had lobsters and steamers on New Year’s Eve. I never make recipes with lobster as I like it just the way it is cooked in boiling water.</p>
<p>Julia Child did the world a huge service in her cookbook with Jacques Pepin by publishing exact lobster cooking times, which she had worked out with her buddy Jasper White:</p>
<p>These are for steamed lobsters as follows:</p>
<p>*Prepare large covered pot with 2 inches of salted water (1.5 teaspoons per quart) and a rack at the bottom to function as a steamer. Bring water to a full boil. Place lobsters in pot and cover. When the water returns to a boil, follow the cooking times specified depending on the size of the individual lobsters you are cooking.</p>
<p>COOKING TIMES</p>
<p>1 pound 10 minutes
1 1/4 pounds 12 to 13 minutes
1 1/2 pounds 14 to 15 minutes
2 pounds 18 minutes
2 1/2 pounds 20 minutes
3 pounds 21 minutes
4 pounds 25 minutes
5 pounds 40 minutes
6 pounds 55 to 65 minutes
7 pounds 70 to 80 minutes*</p>
<p>These have proven to be foolproof for me all the way up to the 7 pounder.</p>
<p>If you start with her steamed lobster recipe, you should be able to complete her Lobster Americaine dish from *Mastering the Art of French Cooking *in about three days. Great dish with lobster in a cognac and roe butter cream sauce, but man it was a production.</p>
<p>I tried a pretty quick sauteed lobster with special spice recipe from Iron Chef Morimoto’s cookbook a few weeks ago. Really good.</p>
<p>If Consolation can still find rockweed (which I’m guessing is that green seaweed we called sea lettuce on the west coast and the Japanese use as nori) then you either live in a less disturbed environment than Puget Sound or are basing your info on what was on the beach in the 70’s.
The green tidelands I remember are gone. Harvesting? Pollution? I don’t know what caused it but there is no seaweed on the beach anymore…</p>
<p>Rockweed is the kind that is normally a brownish color and has bladders that I used to enjoy popping as a kid. (Well, I confess, I still do! 
)</p>
<p>It clings to rocks: hence the name. It is not the flat, wavy green stuff.</p>
<p>And yes, here in Maine and elsewhere in New England there is still plenty of it.</p>
<p>Oh, and the last part of the directions ought to include pop the lobster bodies and cracked shells in a plastic bag in the freezer, and use to make a super stock when you have time to drop by the fish market to pick up some fish frames.</p>