Eating What You Kill

As the weather gets warmer and we inch closer and closer to summer I’ve developed an obsession with lobster. These days my food obsessions have been more about finding a product and trying to teach myself a method of cooking it as opposed to trying to find it at a restaurant ready and prepared for me to eat. I’m not sure where exactly this lobster obsession came from, I think it’s a combination of seeing lobster all around me (in stores/markets) and fond memories of eating lobster in Maine when I was a kid (don’t we all have similar lobster memories?)

All of last week I couldn’t help thinking about lobster, and how to cook it at home. I wasn’t interested in the straight boiling process, I wanted to learn to use lobster as part of a composed plate. Since I haven’t cooked much lobster before I turned to the French Laundry Cookbook, one of my favorites, for guidance. Using the knowledge that stabbing a lobster in the brain is the most humane way to kill it, and some direction form the cookbook, I decided to create my own variation of Thomas Keller’s butter poached lobster.

The night started out with me preparing a ton of clarified butter to poach the lobster in and to finish my vegetables with as well as a blanching of sugar snaps, and leeks. I also decided to try to make some potato chips with my newly purchased mandoline and happened to take a healthy chunk out of my thumb after a brief loss of focus.

I then had to slaughter the lobsters. While we understand that all the meat/fish we eat were once living, it’s one thing to buy the product and something completely different to kill the product yourself. I wouldn’t say that I was squeamish, but I did feel a little sorry for the lobster sitting on my cutting board moving around with no idea what was about to happen. I sharpened my knife and looked down at the little guy and started to feel a little bad. Then I found the spot on the top of its shell where the brain is supposed to be and plunged the tip of my knife down into it. It went in fairly easily only I realized that as I was stabbing the lobster in the head I found myself saying “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” to the lobster I was killing. I then twisted off its tail and arms as directed. After a brief steep in boiling water I removed the meat from the shells and came up with this:




The lobster poached in butter tasted amazing, as did the melted leeks and fresh sugar snaps. The potato chip added I nice texture (it was very crisp) but the sauce (lobster stock mixed with fennel and saffron) lacked body and needed to be thicker, notice the fact that it looks more like a broth. Overall, I was happy with the taste and not terribly mortified by my first time cooking lobster at home but I understand that I still need to learn a lot more about this delicious tasting creature.

***Note that butter poaching is an amazing way to cook lobster, something I plan on doing a lot more of.