Butter Poached Lobster Salad with Champagne Gelee

Call me a snot, but I cannot have a New Year's Eve without lobster.  Lobster can be so decadent, rich, satisfying and special that I've begun to associate celebrating an impending new year with making a special lobster dish.

Last year, I made lobster with gnudi.  Two years ago I made a lobster carbonara (I think...damn I wish I had this site back then). 

Butter poached lobster is a favorite preparation of mine, ever since the entire food world went ga ga over Thomas Keller's version at French Laundry and his subsequent French Laundry Cookbook.   I basically follow his technique point by point, and as you'd expect the results are outrageously good. 

For this dish, I served the butter poached lobster as a salad, with hearts of palm, sprouts, and a champagne gelee.  The champagne gelee is a nice counterpoint to the rich lobster and buttery dressing it slowly cooks in.  The gelee is straight up champagne, and has a kick of acid and alcohol that cuts through the richness. The gelee balances the salad almost like vinegar or citrus would do in a salad dressing.   Lots you can do to dress this up, including add nuts, bitter greens, fruit - the world is yours.

This is a pretty labor intensive dish, but sure to get you some lovin' impress someone for a special occasion.

Full recipe and picts below.

Don't get freaky on the butter quantities - you don't eat all of it.

Ingredient Shopping List
Recipe serves two - just double it for a party of four.
1 1/2 lb live lobster (larger OK)
1 1/4 cups champagne (drink the rest with the meal!)
1 stick unsalted butter
1 pack sprouts or pea shoots
kosher salt, freshly ground pepper
1 bottle of distilled white vinegar
1 packet of gelatin
hearts of palm, ideally fresh or preserved in jar
other garnish ideas: pistachio, winter melon
vegetable oil
2 tblspoons flour

Make the Champagne Gelee

You need to start with this as it takes 3 hours for the gelee to set up in the fridge. Take 1/2 cup champagne and boil in small pan.  Add 1/2 cup cold champagne to separate bowl.  Pour hot champagne into bowl with cold and add i packet of gelatin and whisk thoroughly. Pour onto a flat baking sheet so you have a thin, shallow layer of liquid.  Place in fridge for 3 hours.

Steeping the Lobster
To start, fill a large pasta pot with cold water. Add an ample amount of sea or kosher salt to the water and give it a taste - you're looking for the taste of the sea. Add 1/8 cup of distilled white vinegar. When the water gets to a vigorous boil, add the lobster. You are only looking to cook the lobster for two minutes - just enough to be able to get the meat out of the shell in tact for the butter poaching. The interior of the meat should be raw. Take the lobster out of the pot with large tongs and add directly to a cutting board. Keep the water boiling. Let it sit for a minute to cool down slightly, but it's important to remove the meat from the shell while it's still hot or the meat will congeal and be too difficult to remove from the shell.

Taking The Meat From The Shell
With a clean, folded kitchen towel (to protect you from the heat), hold the tail and twist to remove from the body. Do the same for the claws and when removed from body, add claws back to the boiling water for 5 more minutes. While waiting for the claws to finish steeping, begin to remove the meat from the tail (again, while hot).

For the tail, twist the 'fan' of the tail to the side and remove. With your fingers or a teaspoon, loosen the meat and push meat through the end of the tail shell when the fant used to be. Discard shell. Place the tail on the board backside down and slice in half, lengthwise. Place on a paper towel lined plate and reserve.

After 5 minutes in the boiling water, take out claws and place on cutting board. Discard water. Working with claw it still hot, pick up claw with your folded kitchen towel and twist off the knuckle from the claw. Take the claw in your towel draped hand and pull down the pincer all the way. After this, move it to the side to crack and pull it straight off. Ideally, the cartilage from inside the claw should be attached to the pincer you just pulled off. The claw meat should still be intact in the claw shell. Place the claw shell on the cutting board. Holding it with your towel with the whole where the knuckle used to be face up. Take a back of a large knife and whack the claw right near the hole where the knuckle was attached. You want to go through the shell but not damage the meat. The shell should pop off. Shake the claw to remove the meat in tact. (If not successful with the shell popping off, you may have to turn the claw around and proceed with above procedure). If the meat still doesn't come out, Keller likes to cut the very tip of the claw off and blow through the top to release the meat.

At this point, place the claw meat with the tail on the paper towel plate. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for a few hours until needed. You could do this the night before serving the dish; but ideally, you'd serve it a few hours after refrigerating.

Note: The knuckle meat can be used in this salad or reserved for another use. The body can be used immediately to make a stock, or can be frozen for future stock making and recommend doing so for a future sauce or soup.

Butter Poaching the Lobster
When you are about an hour or so from serving the lobster, take it out of the fridge and bring to room temperature for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, take 1/2 of a stick of cold butter and slice into larger pieces. Add five-six tablespoons champagne to a small saucepan and bring to a boil via high heat. Add a few chunks of butter into the water, whisking as you go to emulsify butter into water. Reduce the heat to low. Continue adding the chunks of butter and whisk until thoroughly emulsified. The mixture should have the consistency of a very thick butter sauce. This method of making a butter emulsion is called Beurre Monte, and is one of Keller's favorite bases for sauces. Add a generous pinch of salt and stir to complete.

You can set this aside on the stove as you prepare the salad ingredients. You should use this within an hour after you make it.

Butter Poaching the Lobster
Place the lobster in a small, empty saucepan. Add the butter poaching Beurre Monte liquid to the lobster until almost covered. Place the pot over low heat, as this needs to cook very gently, for about 5 minutes. The goal is to just heat the lobster through. Set aside to rest on a cutting board. Cut a small slice off and taste it. Check it for salt and confirm cooked through. Note, however, that if lobster is poached correctly at low temperature, it will be tender, almost as if not completely cooked. The key thing to notice is appearance - it should be white and not very opaque in color.

Prep the Hearts of Palm

You can do this step in between lobster steps above.

Dry the hearts of palm thoroughly.  Roll the hearts of palm in the flour and lightly coat. Heat about 3 tblsps oil in a small skillet and when hot but not smoking, saute hearts of palm until crispy and golden brown, turning occasionally with tongs to ensure even browning, about 6 minutes. Remove the hearts of palm from the skillet and cut on the bias into 1/2-inch thick slices and reserve.

Finish the Dish
Place the hearts of palm on the plate in a thin, circular pattern.  Add a teaspoon of poaching butter over the slices. Place half the lobster on the plate over the hearts of palm and drizzle with butter poaching liquid again.   Cut small cubes of the champagne gelee and place around the lobster.  Garnish with a small handful of the sprouts on top of the lobster.  Finally, spread a little more of the poaching liquid around the plate and serve.

Comments

[Lea]

oh... my.... goodness...

Its 10 in the morning, and now I am craving lobster.

I hope you don't mind if I totally gank you lobster for New Years tradition!

Hmmm... we're having lobster for dinner this week! Thanks for sharing this one!

[Herb Conlan]

In making the buerre Monte in the recipe you mention butter and champaigne but not the amount of water to make the poaching liquid. How much do you add?

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[Paul]

Hey, the only way to go is live Maine lobster. Otherwise you are just missing the whole point. It's the cold water or something but, they are the best. http://www.live-maine-lobsters.com/category/live-maine-lobster