Yeah, if you have followed the news recently, the Maine lobstermen are suffering from low low price for their catch due to bad economy. So when we saw an eye popping $3.99 per lb of Maine lobster, we decided we have to check it out in Shoprite supermarket nearby. These specials run on Black Friday and Saturday only, so I guess even the lobsters get into the act too! We were pleasantly surprised to find them to be almost 3 lb each, we got three of them. Usually for special offers, you tend to get the smaller ones,1 to 1 1/4 lb size. This is great as I don’t think we got a bigger size lobster when we went up to Canada a few years ago to Shediac, New Brunswick, the Lobster Capital of the World.
Shediac New Brunswick Canada
We steamed the pitiful lobsters (of course not that big one!) for about 15 minutes as they are bigger size to make sure they are fully cooked. You must make sure the lobster is still alive when you put it into the steamer. A dead lobster is not edible, it will have lost it’s texture, the flesh just don’t taste the way it is supposed to be. Frankly I hadn’t taste a dead lobster ie before it got steamed. The seafood counter person told me he’ll land in jail if he sell dead lobster, so you can see it is a serious matter. Lobsters degrade quickly on death. Some chefs will refuse to prepare a lobster that’s been dead for more than 15 minutes, that’s how fast the meat can start to degrade, effecting taste and texture! Years ago when I worked for a restaurant, I noticed the cooks always cut up the lobsters into sections and freeze it, yes the lobsters were literally hacked to death mercilessly and put into plastic bags to be frozen immediately in preparation for customers ordering them. Prepared this way, the lobsters taste just as a live lobster would. This is how lobsters are typically prepared in Chinese restaurants.
Now we don’t eat them whole, preferring to make a few varieties of dishes. Actually come to think of it, it is pretty boring to just dip them in butter like the way you may order from Red Lobster restaurant. So here we go, making lobster dishes such as lobster pot with fish head, scallops, throw in some ginger and scallions, vermicilli, tofu and some Chinese cabbage to make a nice clear seafood broth. For the lobster pot, we just want to enjoy the rich seafood taste, so we put in the less meaty part.
Chunky lobster tails: we slice them thin as the older lobster is probably a little chewy or maybe we over steamed it. This we cook with mixed veggies, traditional Chinese mix vegetables style, with some vermicilli as well to dress up the dish.
Fried rice: We could not finish the lobster dish so we make a plain fried rice and just warmed up the leftover from yesterday and pour on top of the fried rice. Pretty decent breakfast.
Lobster salad: We made a lobster potato salad with a twist. We add sweet potato and dried raisins, besides the usual Idaho potato, hard boiled eggs chopped up and some mayo to it and put it as a spread over toasted bread. Check out this ‘recipe’, I find it interesting and delicious. If you like it, pass the word around and just call it ‘Johnwane’s Lobster Salad’ Maybe someday this become a famous recipe joining the ranks of Gen Tso chicken, Reuben’s sandwich etc, yes order by name and everybody knows what it is!
So there you have it, if you don’t eat your lobster like you eat a whole steak, you can mix them up in different ways to make your dishes a little more enjoyable I hope.
Look here for more lobster information and an article here relating to low lobster prices
