Seafood has an unfair advantage over other foods in the looks department. Even if you don’t like seafood you have to admit the colours and textures are eye catching. Nothing epitomises this more for me than lobsters and crayfish.

I am new to this seafood cooking business so this is the only way I know how to cook lobster. I am glad to say though that it did the massive Western Rock Lobster, caught by a friend of mine in the waters off Perth, proud.

This method is so easy, even if a fresh whole lobster looks a bit intimidating. Indeed, the first time I halved a whole one I wondered how to even get started :).

This is a great point scorer with my wife and I am also very happy that I get to make my garlic butter using ingredients from my kitchen garden.

STEPS:

1. Halve the lobster
2. BBQ time
3. Serving

You will need:

• Ingredients:
  • table salt to taste
  • cracked pepper to taste
  • enough garlic butter to coat the flesh side of lobster halves
• Equipment
  • a long sharp knife
  • kitchen scissors
  • a chopping board
  • a barbecue or frypan

Halve the lobster

Steps:

1. Place the lobster right side up and, starting in the middle of the carapace, use a long sharp knife to cut the hard outer skeleton stopping at the start of the tail.
2. Flip the lobster over, repeat the cut so that the body is sliced in half.
3. Using kitchen scissors cut the tail’s hard outer skeleton length ways, first the top and then the bottom. This way you probably won’t break the intestinal tract and you can pull it out easily.
4. Finish cutting all the way through the tail meat with the knife now.
5. To be safe I scooped out all the tomalley (the gunky brown stuff in the head and body) and gave the halves a good rinse.
6. I now cover the flesh side of the lobster halves with garlic butter, pushing it into all the nooks and crannies. Then I add lots of black pepper and a bit of salt.

I do the same thing if I am using just the tails:

BBQ time

Steps:

1. Place the lobster halves flesh side up on a preheated medium flame grill.
2. The garlic butter will start to sizzle and some of the flesh will start to go white. That is when I turn them over.
3. When the flesh side is opaque white and looking chargrilled, whip them off the grill and serve immediately. You will need to experiment a bit to make sure they are not under cooked nor turned to rubber 🙂

Serving

As this was a massive beastie I simply served one half to each adult with a fresh green salad. It was perfect and I got to bank lots of brownie points.

I would love to hear how you cook lobster or crays or any improvements on the above.

Enjoy,

PK