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Lobster tails


porkpa

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Split the shells and grill them.

"I've caught you Richardson, stuffing spit-backs in your vile maw. 'Let tomorrow's omelets go empty,' is that your fucking attitude?" -E. B. Farnum

"Behold, I teach you the ubermunch. The ubermunch is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the ubermunch shall be the meaning of the earth!" -Fritzy N.

"It's okay to like celery more than yogurt, but it's not okay to think that batter is yogurt."

Serving fine and fresh gratuitous comments since Oct 5 2001, 09:53 PM

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Well, you could.

"I've caught you Richardson, stuffing spit-backs in your vile maw. 'Let tomorrow's omelets go empty,' is that your fucking attitude?" -E. B. Farnum

"Behold, I teach you the ubermunch. The ubermunch is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the ubermunch shall be the meaning of the earth!" -Fritzy N.

"It's okay to like celery more than yogurt, but it's not okay to think that batter is yogurt."

Serving fine and fresh gratuitous comments since Oct 5 2001, 09:53 PM

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Do you have any compound butter, like tarragon?

If you split the top part of the shell down to the tail you can season and then spread the butter on the meat.

Broil, shell side down, until the flesh turns opaque and shell is bright red. Start checking after 5 minutes.

You could heat some more butter to dip the meat into.

Just some corn on the cob and a nice baguette to accompany.

There are more complex preperations I would usually recommend but this will get you where you want to go.

/What's a PITA?

"I've caught you Richardson, stuffing spit-backs in your vile maw. 'Let tomorrow's omelets go empty,' is that your fucking attitude?" -E. B. Farnum

"Behold, I teach you the ubermunch. The ubermunch is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the ubermunch shall be the meaning of the earth!" -Fritzy N.

"It's okay to like celery more than yogurt, but it's not okay to think that batter is yogurt."

Serving fine and fresh gratuitous comments since Oct 5 2001, 09:53 PM

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Treat them like big prawns or langoustines

Right. I was having a vision of them over a big dish of pasta with a seafood sauce.

Katie M. Loeb
Booze Muse, Spiritual Advisor

Author: Shake, Stir, Pour:Fresh Homegrown Cocktails

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Bartendrix,Intoxicologist, Beverage Consultant, Philadelphia, PA
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  • 5 months later...

Hoping to see some responses here on this topic; lobster tails are a personal favorite that always intimidate me. I've done them in the oven, under the broiler and outdoors; all only to modest success. My problems have to do with properly cutting the meat out of the shell before cooking (there is a "name" for this which I cannot recall). By cutting the meat out and simply setting it back inside the shell to cook the meat it supposedly cooks more evenly (important as lobster tail is a relatively quick-cook; 6-8 minutes) and makes presentation easier.

I, of course, "butcher it" trying to detach it from the shell. More than annoying if the ultimate goal is lobster medallions for a soup/chowder or for a salad or simply to lay in a sauce as a pretty but simple entree.

Bob Sherwood

____________

“When the wolf is at the door, one should invite him in and have him for dinner.”

- M.F.K. Fisher

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I think if you actually wanted to remove the meat from the shell, raw, you should drop them in boiling water for about 45 seconds. This will loosen it from the shell. Trying to remove the meat without doing this only makes a mess of shredded lobster meat.

I did this with a live lobster (both ways), and the meat was still raw after the blanching operation, so we were able to use it for sushi. With the unblanched lobster, too much meat was left in the shell.

Lobster tails are generally broiled to an attractive brown on top, but steaming or poaching gently will cook the meat with less likelihood of overcooking in part or whole.

Try poaching in 160º melted butter (to an internal temp of 160º with an instant-read thermometer), then return it to the shell for serving.

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Obviously, it is preferable to cook the whole (live) lobster. Lobster tails (especially frozen) are a challenge to do well.

My suggestion would be to either make Ceviche, tempura fry or to oven poach in Beurre Monte.

fanatic...

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Are lobster tails even worth cooking? I ask this seriously, because my experience with them has not been good.

Live, whole lobsters are great, and shrimp, even the monster shrimp, seem to survive the deep freeze in much better shape than lobster tails, which are often dry to the point of tastelessness. Poaching them in butter sounds like a sensible thing to do, but it also sounds an awful lot like the preparations employed to make tinned snails edible.

Arthur Johnson, aka "fresco"
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About a year ago I was asked to come up with a good (easy to execute) recipe for frozen lobster tails. My first reaction was that, as you say, they were not "worth cooking." I still feel that it is a significant compromise (and truly not worth the money), but it is, in fact, possible to create a tasty dish.

The recipe oven-poached the lobster tails in beurre monte and served them over applewood smoked bacon mashed potatoes.

To be honest, after a year more thought, my first choice would be to make ceviche. Second choice would be the above treatment and third would be to tempura fry them and serve them in a "taco" of sorts.

fanatic...

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For 8oz tails I would not consider removing them from the shell either before cooking or after blanching. They are just too small. Cook whole by steaming, boiling or grilling and serve with some sort of melted buuter. They are done when the meat turns from translucent to just opaque. For the best in frozen tails you need the 16-24 oz tails and even they are dependant on origin and supplier. The classical serving technique where the meat is presented outside the shell is really done after the tail is cooked. -Dick

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Lobster tails come from spiny caribbean lobster, not from New England cold water lobster. The caribbean lobsters are harvested just for their tails.

Provided they are flash frozen, they are perfectly good sauteed in butter or broiled. but make sure there is plenty of fat involved in the cooking or they will dry out.

Jason Perlow, Co-Founder eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters

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I second (or third, or fifth) the butter poaching approach. If, as may be possible, CRUZ is unfamiliar with this technique, there is a lengthy article (from the NYT) and recipe posted here. I have personally cooked this recipe several times. It is (almost) better than sex. The key, for those who haven't done it, is to get the butter warm enough so that it melts, but does not separate -- like a buerre blanc, on a massive scale.

A good thing to do with frozen lobsters -- or any lobster, for that matter -- is to whip up a Dean Fearing lobster taco, kind of a Texas lobster roll. Just roll the warm meat in soft flour tortillas with shredded spinach, jalapeno jack cheese and the salsa (preferably homemade) of your choice. This is a good use of frozen tails that might be slightly disappointing served by themselves, but are still perfectly woderful in their own right.

I'm on the pavement

Thinking about the government.

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Lobster tails come from spiny caribbean lobster, not from New England cold water lobster. The caribbean lobsters are harvested just for their tails.

Why is that? Is there something wrong with the rest of their bodies?

Michael aka "Pan"

 

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Lobster tails come from spiny caribbean lobster, not from New England cold water lobster. The caribbean lobsters are harvested just for their tails.

Why is that? Is there something wrong with the rest of their bodies?

They actually grow their tails back. Scientifically, this is known as rebutting.

peak performance is predicated on proper pan preparation...

-- A.B.

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Lobster tails come from spiny caribbean lobster, not from New England cold water lobster. The caribbean lobsters are harvested just for their tails.

Why is that? Is there something wrong with the rest of their bodies?

Virtually all of the meat on a New England cold water lobster comes from three areas: the tail, the claws and the knuckles. The rest is tomalley, etc. Caribbean spiny lobsters don't have large claws like their New England relatives. Thus no claw meat and no knuckle meat. All that is left is the tail meat.

--

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