Lobster rolls, baked stuffed lobster, even lobster mac & cheese can't compete with a basic boiled lobster with melted butter.

This month marks our 9-year anniversary of moving to Maine. (I know... time sure does fly!!!)
And although I will never be able to call myself a true Mainer, I am a New Englander through and through.

I have lived in New England my whole life  (I even went to college in Rhode Island) except for a short stint after college working on Wall Street and then after I got married and my husband and I lived in Pensacola, Florida and then Norfolk, Virginia. 
And even then, for my birthday each year, my husband would have live lobsters flown in from Maine for me.
So I think that qualifies me to be kind of an expert when it comes to lobster. Haha!
I'll admit that I have eaten more than my share of lobster through the years. It's pretty easy to do when you live in Maine. 

I've had both warm and cold lobster rolls, I've ordered baked, stuffed lobster and lobster macaroni & cheese (one case where the whole is just not greater than the sum of its parts!) out at restaurants, and I've even tried lobster ice cream (and it's WAAAAAY better than you might think).

But hands down, in my opinion, the best and only way to really, truly enjoy lobster is boiled. Lobster is such a delicious food, it only needs a bit of melted butter to amplify the natural sweet saltiness of the meat.
Every time we have friends or family come to visit, we always treat them to a lobster dinner. 
Everyone gets two boiled lobsters, a small ramekin of melted butter, a nutcracker, and one of those long picks to pull the meat out of the narrow crevices. No need to over-complicate things. 

Simple. Delicious. Basic boiled lobster. So in case you find yourself up in Maine, maybe at an Air BnB for a long weekend, and you decided to go get some lobsters to bring back for dinner, I wanted to share with you how to boil a lobster.  
Because it would be a shame not to experience boiled lobster first-hand.

As an aside, we actually did a whole lobster episode during the first season of Welcome to my Farm. Here's a short clip. And before I share how to boil a lobster, I should share some interesting lobster tidbits with you first:
1. Lobsters need to be kept alive until just before cooking them because they release a toxin that multiplies quickly and causes the meat to start to spoil as soon as they die. 
It's best to buy your lobsters just before you're going to eat them, but you can store them overnight in the fridge wrapped in seaweed or wet newspapers if you can't eat them the same day.
2.  A lobster nervous system is similar to that of a grasshopper and it's widely thought that they aren't capable of feeling pain.  True or not, I am going to choose to believe that because lobster is one of my favorite foods.
3. An oft-debated bit of New England lore is that prisoners were fed lobster in Colonial New England, and they finally complained, so a law had to be enacted that forbid prisons from feeding the prisoners lobster. 
4. The "green stuff" you often find inside a lobster is called "tomalley" and it's the liver and pancreas of the lobster. While it is edible, and considered a delicacy by some, you can just scrape it out (I feed it to our chickens!)
5. The "reddish stuff" you might find inside a lobster is roe (unfertilized eggs). It's only found in female lobsters and unfortunately doesn't taste like caviar! But it is edible. Again, this goes to our chickens. They love it! 
6. The white cheesy stuff you see on the lobster meat after it's cooked is just cooked juice and other bits. Don't worry about that - just eat it! 
Regardless if that's true or not, it is true that lobster was considered the poor man's protein because they were so plentiful.

Okay, so now on to the boiling. All you need is a BIG pot (which I'm sure resides in every New Englander's kitchen), salt and water. We can fit two lobsters in our pot at a time.
And you need the lobsters, of course. We usually go with the pound to pound-and-a-half lobsters. Sure, the big ones are impressive, but I find the smaller lobsters much sweeter and the meat is more tender.

How to Boil a Lobster

Two 1- to 1 1/2-pound lobsters per person1/4 cup salt, optionalSalted butter
Fill your pot about 2/3 of the way with water. Add the salt. Honestly, the salt is optional. My husband never adds any, since we're dipping the lobster in salted butter anyway. But if you want to add salt, go right ahead.
Toss in some seaweed, if any came with your lobsters.  Cover the pot and bring the water to a boil. Once the water is boiling, put the lobsters in the pot, one at a time, head first. 
Bring the water back to a boil, cover the pot loosely, and then start your timer. For 1 1/2-pound lobsters, boil for 11 minutes. Then use tongs to remove the lobsters from the water. Work in batches if necessary, bringing the water back to a boil in between each batch.
I usually figure on about half a stick of butter for each pair of lobsters. I simply melt the butter and then pour it into individual ramekins. 
You can get fancy and clarify the butter, but honestly, it's just more work than its worth, in my opinion.
And that's how to boil a lobster.

If you prefer different weight lobsters, here's a handy time chart:
1 lbs – 8 minutes1.25 lbs – 9-10 minutes1.5 lbs – 11-12 minutes1.75 lbs – 12-13 minutes2 lbs – 15 minutes2.25 lbs – 20 minutes3 lbs – 25 minutes5 lbs – 35-40 minutes
Note: you should probably leave the thick rubber bands around the lobsters' claws on until you've boiled the lobsters. A large lobster could break your finger if it gets a good grip, exerting 100 pounds per square inch of pressure. My husband likes to live on the edge and removes the bands before cooking, but he's also been doing this a very long time... 

Now that your lobster is cooked , you'll need to break it down, whether you're just dipping it in melted butter or making a lobster roll or other recipe.

You don't need any fancy equipment. We just use nutcrackers and skewers. But you can buy a fancy lobster set like this.

How to Break Down a Lobster

1. First, twist off the tail. Flip it over and use your thumbs to press all the way down the center, then pull the two sides apart and remove the tail meat. 
2. Next twist off each arm where it meets the body, then twist the claw off the arm joint. Wiggle the thumb to remove it, then use a nut cracker to crack and claw and remove the meat. 
3. Break open the arm by bending it backwards at the joint and use the skewer or a pick to remove the meat. 
4. Optional, use the pick or skewer to fish the meat out of the tail fan, legs, etc. 

Tip: Have a plate or bowl ready to discard your shells and to drain any water out of the body of the lobster. 

©2024 Coop to Kitchen by Lisa Steele. All rights reserved.