- I feel like we're about to have like
a bit of an Annie Hall moment here,
where the lobsters are just gonna come
like scuttling across
the top of the counter.
(laughing)
(hip music)
When it comes to lobster rolls,
everybody's got an opinion.
Some people want a top-split bun,
some people want a side-split bun.
Other people want butter dressing it,
other people think it should be mayo.
You people who think
I'm crazy for having put
lettuce inside these
things, celery, no celery.
We're living in a world
divided here, but I think
when it comes to lobster
rolls you can have it all.
Unless you wanna pay like
45 or 50 bucks a pound
for already shelled lobster meat,
you kinda have to do it yourself.
So, we thought, today
we're just gonna do it IRL.
And, we are gonna make
lobster rolls from scratch,
starting with live lobsters.
- Are you gonna dispatch the
lobster right here and now?
- I mean I kinda have to, right?
- The more humane way
to kill 'em, I think,
is to put 'em directly in the steam.
- [Man] No.
- [Man] What, that's crazy.
- [Woman] No.
- [Man] No.
- 100%.
- A lot of disagreements, we welcome,
we welcome the debate.
We're just gonna do it.
You put the tip of the knife right
at that sort of joint in the carapace.
(crunching)
All right, so that's like
the dirty part of the job.
So, I'm gonna do one shot,
clean, each one myself.
And then it can go into the steam.
Part of the reason that I think
steaming lobsters makes sense,
is like getting this much water to boil
actually takes like quite a long time.
And then, you have the displacement of
all the lobsters going into the water.
So, steam, frankly, like it heats quickly,
it's pretty accurate to kind
of time the cook with it.
All right, so this should go
kinda six to eight minutes.
We're just looking for the
lobsters to be bright red,
for those tails to kinda
curl up, and we'll be back
in just a sec while we
work on our dressing.
Our dressing is pretty simple.
We're just gonna do some celery,
we're gonna cut up like a
quarter cup worth of it.
I think it just adds a little
bit of texture and crunch
to the roll, and gives you that
kind of like cool, kind of bracing flavor.
Quarter cup of mayo.
About half a teaspoon of lemon zest,
always good to take your zest
before you squeeze the juice.
Half a tablespoon of juice.
And then, we're gonna do a
full tablespoon of chives.
I just like have this thing with chives
like they can kind of
fly all over the place.
Like a little damp paper
towel, they already wanna
fly all over your board
already, as it it, but.
This at least keeps the root end intact.
If anything, you kinda have
to be a little bit careful
with how much lemon juice
you're putting in this.
Because you don't want
this to be so liquidy
that it just sort of runs right off
of the lobster meat, right?
So, the lemon zest is gonna
give you lemon flavor,
but without thinning out
this dressing unnecessarily.
Just a little bit of cracked pepper.
Another thing that's nice in here,
just like a splash of hot sauce.
Gives it a little bit more depth.
Not an ad, not sponsored,
just a little dash of
Cholula or any hot sauce.
Honestly, there's nothing to it.
And, the point of a
lobster roll like isn't
that you should just load
it down with tons of flavor.
We're not putting fermented black beans,
or anything crazy in there.
That sort of classic New
England flavor profile
like always kinda wins.
I'm just gonna give a quick check.
So, red, tails are curled, I think we're
pretty much good to pull that.
That was about eight minutes.
And, the cool thing about this technique
is that we're gonna be
rewarming this meat in butter.
So, if anything, it's
better to err on the side
of cooking it a little bit less,
as opposed to cooking it more.
So, we're back with our lobster.
A lot of what you need to
do to break down a lobster
is just, you know, you can
kinda do with your bare hands.
There's no getting around
the fact that like,
you know, by the end of this,
this board is gonna look
like absolute carnage.
But, I just like to take the tail off.
Then remove the claws right where
they meet the carapace here.
Twisting, kind of like feeling
where it wants to resist
and then keep going just a little bit.
I don't really get into
too much of like, you know,
what little meat that there
is kind of in the body.
Brad probably only eats
lobster bodies or something.
But, we have tail, and we have claws here.
With the tail, I'm just gonna squeeze in,
til I hear cracking all
along the length of the tail.
And then, we pull these halves apart.
The tail meat should wanna pop right out.
This was a particularly clean break,
it doesn't always work
out quite that nicely.
I'm gonna give that a little rinse.
And then, you have your claws,
and you have your knuckles.
(cracking)
This is something that
snips are really good at,
removing the meat from
those knuckle sections.
Like, the knuckles are
actually super delicious.
To me, it's honestly my favorite
part of the entire lobster.
So, once you kinda snip from both sides,
you can kinda liberate the knuckle.
Now we get to our claw, right?
Pull the lower part of the claw up.
Wiggle it from side to side.
Feel your way through
this, it's a little tricky.
All kinds of ways to proceed from here.
Hammer it, you know, like crab mallet.
You can use a cracker.
My favorite method is using
the back of a sturdy knife.
I just whack down into it.
It allows you to just crack
both sides of the shell,
and to hopefully keep that nice section
of meat intact in there, like so.
So, the last claw we have
to do is this crusher claw.
The crusher claw is a
little bit more burly.
Again, like this is my preferred method.
Oh, that was clean break, that was nice.
When you use those lobster crackers,
especially on a crusher
claw, trying to crush it
from this way is really impossible.
When you do the back of the knife trick,
starting from like that lower point,
it fractures really nicely.
I think for the purpose
of our lobster roll,
I'm just gonna cut through the claw,
leave the knuckles as they are.
I kind of like nice, big, chunky pieces.
Cool.
So, that was one lobster down.
We're gonna melt this butter,
which I think this is five tablespoons.
Pull off two tablespoons of
it to brush onto the sides
of our top-split, New
England style hot dog buns.
And then, we are gonna warm the lobster up
just gently in the
remaining melted butter.
Let's do it.
This is what it's all about.
This is a top-split bun.
It has these beautiful cut faces,
that wanna soak up butter, and
then get toasty golden brown.
I'm just gonna brush this
butter onto these buns.
I never seem, whoa, whoa.
- [Man] Whoa, whoa.
- Whoa.
We're just gonna swap that out.
- Whoa, look at that.
- All right, cool.
- One from the end.
- We're back.
The thing about like
butter and hot dog buns,
is like you don't need a lot of heat.
So, it's like very moderate
heat is kinda where it's at.
Cool, so we are just
about ready to go here.
We're just gonna take
this sort of cold lobster
and we are gonna rewarm it super gently.
You also just coat the
lobster in that melted butter.
That's gonna really help
from a flavor perspective.
You're kinda gonna get a butter hit,
a little mayonnaise dressing hit,
and it's all gonna come
together beautifully.
One more pinch of salt,
and I think we're kinda good to go here.
Flourish, busting these
hot dog buns wide open.
I think a little bit of lettuce is cool.
I just think you want
a little bit of crunch,
and you wanna provide
a kinda barrier between
the dressed lobster meat and the bun.
So, it just doesn't kinda sog out.
Cool.
So, here we have it.
Little chive garnish just to finish.
Best-of-both-worlds lobster roll.
Molly, you wanna get in on a lobster roll?
- Mm.
- I feel like all the juices like stayed
right in the lettuce where they belong.
- [Molly] The lobster is perfectly cooked.
- All right, we're gonna chalk
this one up as a success.
- Mm, delicious.
- We need purple carrots.
- Purple?
- Purple.
Purple.
- We might have to get the variety bunch.
- And then just pull the
purple ones out, that's okay.
- I'll look.
- [Man] Isn't that wasteful?
- We'll keep the other ones.
- Yeah, we'll keep the other ones.
We'll feed it to the rabbits.
- Yeah, we can feed this bunny right here.
