BBQ Lobster

BBQ Lobster

Level of difficulty: medium

Cooks for 2

Ingredients

2 live lobsters
1 lemon
8 tbsp (1 stick) of butter
1 tbsp paprika
Fresh chopped Italian parsley
4 cloves minced garlic

Sure you can go to a fancy resto and pay $50 for a lobster dinner. But whats the fun in that? Today we'll show you the no nonsense guide to bbq'ing yourself an absolutely mouth watering lobster dinner.

It's my recommendation you buy your lobsters fresh (that means alive and kickin!). So, find yourself a trusted market or grocer and purchase yourself 2 lobsters (or however many your party is). Ideally you want about a pound of meat per person so one lobster each usually does the trick.

If you have the time, you'll want to freeze your lobster for 2 hours to kill it humanely. If you're like us, and bought the lobsters impulsively, as one typically does when deciding to dine on lobster, you'll have to do it the hard way. A solid spear through the middle back cross of the head with a shish kebab skewer does the trick. Put your new friend on a good solid cutting board. Secure the lobster and spear quickly, you don't want it to tense up too much (this can result in tough meat). Fast and hard works best.

Now, make sure your lobster is fast asleep, otherwise the next step can get tricky. What you want to do is cut the lobster from tail to head with a big, sharp knife. Place belly down on your cutting board. secure and cut (you'll have to really press down hard once you reach the under carriage, just keep pressing down). Once you have your lobster nicely cut in even halves you'll want to clean it out. Typically you will just find green mushy insides. This is the lobsters 'tomalley', its the digestive gland. Make sure you get rid of all this with mountain goat like precision. You don't want any portion of whatever strange food that lobster may have been digesting digesting in your own belly. Occasionally you may encounter lots of little black / red circles. Don't be alarmed! These are unfertilized eggs from a female. You can eat these but its recommended to take them out of the lobster before cooking it. The final stage of lobster preparation is to mash the claws with a mallet. When you bbq you have to make sure the claws get cooked, and sometimes when they are trapped in their shell they miss the heat. So make sure you give them a good whack and crack them open.

Once your lobster is prepped & clean lay it down and take a break from that. Its time to focus on your sauce and heat your bbq. You want the BBQ medium hot (425°). For the sauce you can do any variation, but I like a traditional butter garlic sauce. Simply melt the desired amount of butter, squeeze in a lemon and 2 cloves of garlic, and once its melted sprinkle some parsley garnish on top (save some more chopped fresh parsley to sprinkle on the lobster when its in its last minute of cooking on the bbq). Now let your sauce heat on low-medium, nice and slow.

Now your bbq should be up to speed. Sprinkle your lobsters with a little lime or lemon and then a pinch of paprika as you place the meat face down (like the pic above) on the bbq. My rule of thumb is 3 minutes flesh down, then you flip them, then 5 minutes shell down (until it gets nice and red). Add that parsley mentioned in the last minute to the fleshy upside.

Pour your sauce into an appropriate container, place in between your now nicely bbq'd lobster and there you have it, Bbq'd lobster! A thrill and a treat.

Complementary Wines: Bordeaux, Chenin Blanc

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