by Thomas Keller
Text from the French Laundry Cook Book by Thomas Keller
Cooking Lobster: If you take lobster out it's shell before fully cooking it, you have more control over it's taste and texture. Steep the lobster just enough so that it will pull cleanly away from the shell, leaving the interior raw, so you can treat it like raw fish.
At the French Laundry, we butter-poach the lobster which loads the flavor of butter into the meat and cooks is so slowly and gently that the flesh remains exquisitely tender - so tender some people think it's not completely cooked. When you cook lobster violently, the meat seized up and become tough and you can't get any flavor into it. Gentle heating is the key. Butter-poached lobster is extrardinarly versatile. You can combine it with many different garnishes: beets and leeks, peas and carrorts, figs, foie gras.
Sometimes we slow-roast the lobster, a technique that moves it into the realm of meat, so we treat it like a meat. We season it with squab spice, slow-roast it, and serve it with foie gras.
All our lobster dishes begin with the same initial preparation, after which the lobster may be poached in butter, roasted, or chopped for a filling. It's essential to work with the "steeped" lobsters while they are still hot: if they cool, the fat in the meat will congeal and the meat will be difficult to remove from the shell.
Perparing Lobster Meat
To Steep the lobsters: Place the lobsters in a tight-fitting hear-proof container. Cover with cold water. Drain off the water, measure it, and place it in a large pot. Bring the water to a boil and add 1/2 cup of white distilled vinegar for every 8 quarts of water. Pour the boiling liquid over the lobsters and let them steep for 2 minutes if using 1.5 pound lobsters, 3 minutes for 2lb lobsters. Remove the lobsters from the hot water, but do not discard the water.
One at a time, using a towel or rubber gloves to hold the hot lobster, grasp its tail and twist and pull to detach it. Twist and pull off the claws and return the to the hot water for 5 minutes. Reserve the bodies.
Remove meat from lobster (see book for details on how to do this)
To poach in butter: Bring the lobster pieces to room temperature. Place them in one layer in a large saucepan and add the beurre monte. They should be almost covered. Place the pan over low heat and slowly poach the lobster in the butter for 5 to 6 minutes, just to heat through.