20 COOK’S COUNTRY • AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2019
The lobster is bathed in melted butter as it finishes cooking in the skillet.THERE ARE MANY ways to make
a lobster roll—and I love them all.
Where I live near Boston, the cold
mayonnaise and celery version is the
most popular. But since butter and
lobster make such a great match, I
wanted to take a deep dive into the
style of lobster roll that uses melted
butter in place of the mayo and celery.
I set out to make the best version of
the buttered style, one that would be
easily achievable for the home cook.
Fresh, live lobster is plentiful (and
often relatively inexpensive) where
I live; the New England coast is the
epicenter of the country’s lobster
industry. But for the sake of readers
in other parts of the country, I knew I
needed to look into other options. So
in addition to using the meat from live
local lobsters that I boiled and shelled
myself, I made hot buttered lobster
rolls using the meat from frozen
lobster tails (which are sold raw and in
the shells), canned chunk lobster meat,
and a canister of preshelled meat from
my fi shmonger.
The canned chunk meat was
mushy and lacking in fl avor, and the
preshelled meat was too chewy (likely
as a result of overcooking). The lesson:
Whether you buy live lobsters (our
fi rst choice) or frozen tails (our second
choice), it’s important to cook them
yourself for the best-tasting, most
tender meat.
Since neither chewy, stringy meat
nor raw lobster would do, I knew that
a foolproof cooking method would be
key to this recipe’s success. Knowing
that I’d use the meat from the tails
and claws of fresh lobsters (there are
lots of tasty morsels in the body, too,
but they are smaller and take a bit
of work to get to), I determined that
I’d need three 1½ -pound lobsters to
make four rolls. Using three lobsters
meant that I couldn’t cook them in a
standard Dutch oven; I’d need a larger
stockpot to fi t them. I tried poaching,
boiling, simmering, and steaming the
lobsters. Poaching took too long, and
steaming resulted in uneven cooking.
Simmering in plenty of salted water
(for seasoning) was the way to go; in
about 12 minutes, the lobster meat
was perfectly cooked and—after a
10-minute rest—easy to remove from
the shells.
As for the butter, my plan was
to follow other recipes and toss the
chopped shelled meat in melted butter
in the same skillet I’d use to toast the
hot dog buns. After a bit of testing,
I landed on toasting the buns fi rst,removing them from the skillet, and
then adding 6 tablespoons of unsalted
butter. Once the butter had melted, I
tossed in the lobster meat and heated
it through for a few minutes before
scooping the sweet, glistening morsels
into the buns. A minced shallot added
to the butter provided another layer of
sweet, savory fl avor without overcom-
plicating things or overshadowing the
lobster’s sweetness.
But I ran into a problem. Since
lobster meat is very delicate and prone
to overcooking (and becoming rubbery
and chewy), fully cooking the lobsters
before warming the meat through in
the skillet was causing the meat toovercook. I found that it was best to
slightly undercook the lobsters during
their initial simmer; after 10 minutes
the meat was cooked almost all the
way through and still came out of the
shell easily. To fi nish, a sprinkling
of minced chives along with lemon
wedges on the side brought these
lobster rolls over the top.
My colleagues were smitten with
these buttery lobster rolls, so much so
that a few claimed they were swearing
off the cold, mayo-based version for-
ever. While I’m not ready to make that
leap, these hot buttered lobster rolls
are defi nitely going into my summer
cooking rotation.Hot
Buttered
Lobster
Rolls
Hold the mayo—and the
celery. For lobster lovers,
a buttered lobster roll
doesn’t need ’em.
by Alli Berkey