Lobsters, Take 2

This is how it started…

…and this is how it ended…
I was going to make the bisque again. It’s an amazing recipe, but it just seemed so unfair that you cook a bunch of lobsters, which takes a grand total of 10 minutes, but you don’t get to eat for another 2 hours. Yes, it’s worth it for this bisque, but just not this time. This time I wanted lobster fastfood. So my mom, my aunt and I walked up to the grocery store, bought our lobsters and I offered to carry them back down the hill to the house. I didn’t even hold them at arms length from my body out of fear. I courageously threw them into my shoulder bag and let them bounce a tiny, tiny bit against my hip all the way home. I was gentle, but I was showing those lobsters who was boss.

My home in Newfoundland actually has a lobster pot so we could boil three small lobsters in one go. The suffering would be quick. Our suffering, I mean. The lobsters’ suffering would take the same amount of time no matter when they got added to the pot. Still, they had to be added one at a time…

When we got home with the 3 poor fellows, I put the bag straight into the fridge while I boiled a big pot of salted water. I had about 4 cups of water, a cup and a half of sake (leftover, so I threw it in), 1/4 cup of salt (just throw in a lot) and a few slices of ginger (because all of Asia agrees that ginger goes well with sake in sauces). When I got the lobsters out of the fridge once the water had come to a boil, they weren’t moving. This had happened last time too…so I was pretty sure they weren’t dead…just lethargic. Elastic bands firmly in place, I picked up the first lobster by his bottom and put him into the pot (pictured above).

Then in went lobster number 2, and finally lobster number 3.

Lobster number 3 looks a little more excited to finally be warm. No one cried (me, or the lobsters, or my mother, or my aunt) and when the water came back to a boil, I set the timer for 10 minutes and cooked the three crustaceans in the covered pot.

In the meantime…

I got three little bowls of butter melted ready. That’s all you need for this. I also had some chile-garlic paste leftover (to continue the Asian theme from the sake and ginger) and so I put that out too. Really, the lobster meat didn’t need much of anything, and the meal of sweet potatoes, lobster and salad was absolutely incredible. The great thing is it takes a bunch of time to shuck the lobster, so you work for your dinner, instead of gobbling it up quickly and still feeling hungry and wishing you’d killed an extra lobster or two. Besides, all that butter needs time to soak into your body. It is my favourite kind of body butter. Take that, Body Shop.