Handling & Cooking Live Lobsters

Our lobsters will arrive at your doorstep in our specially-designed cartons -- alive, feisty and ready to cook. If possible, cook them immediately. If you need to store the lobsters until cooking time, put them together in a loose plastic or heavy paper bag in the refrigerator, but do not seal the plastic bag and do not let the lobsters freeze. The lobsters should appear lively at the time of cooking.

Recipes: check our quick recipes links to some of the world's best culinary Internet sites. Grand Manan Lobsters are delicious in a wide variety of cuisines: everything from an Atlantic shore dinner to Asian, European, fusion, and Southwest styles.

Handling & Cooking: Ideally, your lobsters should be taken from the shipping box and placed in the pot. We recommend steaming for maximum flavor and nutrition, and suggest adding our Pickering & Griffin Gulf of Maine Sea Salt to the steam water.

Avoid using tap water: Depending on your municipal or household water source, added treatments, such as chlorine, will impart a un-natural flavor to the lobster. Always use natural well water or bottled water for cooking your lobster.

How To Kill A Lobster Humanely

Putting Lobsters to Sleep: Yes, Hypnotizing Lobsters

This is a valuable life skill and the sort of thing you are taught in management training courses. Take your lobster, stand it on its head with its claws laid out in front of it and its tail curled inward. Rub your hand up and down the carapace making sure to rub between the eyes. Eventually it may stand by itself. You are now in complete control of your lobster. Obviously, your friends will not be impressed if you are in a restaurant and the lobster is cooked.

Humane Killing: Cutting into a Lobster

Make sure the rubber bands around the claws stay on during this process, as you don't want to be dodging the claws while cutting up the lobster.

You must first cut it in half down the center. This job is best done with a 10-inch chef's knife, and one with a good deal of heft.

Step 1. With the lobster sitting where the tail curls towards the table, flatten it out and in one hand grasp the tail where it joins the body.

In the other hand, take the knife's point and aim for the place an inch or an inch-and-a-half from between the eyes towards the tail. The blade of the knife should be facing away from your hand that is holding the tail.

Step 2. Press the point of the knife into the head at that point until the point of the knife goes all the way through the lobster's head to the cutting board, then bring the blade down between the eyes to finish the cut of the head. This kills the lobster as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Steaming

We highly recommend steaming lobsters in a small amount of water (1 or 2 inches or so, depending on the expected length of cooking time) on a steaming rack, and we suggest adding our Pickering & Griffin Gulf of Maine Sea Salt to the water to preserve peak flavor. Steaming is a gentler cooking method than boiling and results in more tender meat. Cooking time is more flexible, too, because overcooking is less likely. (Overcooking will make the meat more chewy.)

Recommended steaming time: 1 lb = 10 minutes; 1-1/4 lb = 12 minutes; 1-1/2 lbs = 14 minutes; 1-3/4 lbs = 16 minutes; 2 lbs = 18 minutes; 2-1/2 lbs = 22 minutes; 3 lbs = 25 to 30 minutes; 5 lbs = 40 to 45 minutes. Adjust the lobsters in the pot about halfway through the steaming time, to ensure that lobsters are evenly cooked.

Preparing Lobster for Grilling or Baking

Grilling or Baking Lobster

Step 1. How to kill a lobster humanely.

Step 2.

1. Turn the lobster the other way and cut the tail in the same fashion as killing the lobster.
2. Along the center of the lobster are three kinds of viscera, the dark green are the stomach and intestine that should be scraped out and discarded, and the yellow-green and coral are the liver, or tomalley, and the roe, which are both delicious and can be left in.
3. Remove the claws, and crack them with the back side (not the sharp side) of the knife. You may prefer to do this inside a plastic bag to minimize the mess.

To Grill Your Lobster

1. Place the claws still encased in the cracked shell on the hotter part of the grates.
2. Salt and pepper the inside open half of the lobster and grill it 2-3 minutes
3. Turn over the body and the claws and grill for another 4 minutes.
4. If the flame flares up, move the lobster to a cooler part of the grill, or move it until the flame calms down.

To Bake or Broil a Lobster

1. Prepare in the same manner as above and, for broiling, place the lobster at least eight inches from the flame in a shallow fry or saute pan and begin with the cut side down for 3-4 minutes.
2. When the shell has turned bright red, turn (optional: apply butter) and finish for another 3 minutes.
3. Be sure to check for doneness, as broiler temperatures vary. Use the same method in the oven at 425 degrees.

How to Eat a Lobster

Cracking a lobster

1. Twist off both claws and attached knuckles.
2. Crack both claws and knuckles with a cracker or the back side (not the sharp side) of a chef's knife.
3. Twist off the moveable part of the claw and peel away claw pieces to get to the claw meat.
4. Twist the tail off of the body.
5. Pick off each tail flipper and pinch the meat out.
6. Insert fork into tail opening on the underside about an inch and twist and pull fork with one hand while holding tail in the other. The whole piece of tail meat should slide out.
7. Turn the lobster body over and with a knife or pair of kitchen shears cut open between the walking legs. There are two pockets of meat underneath on each side.
8. Pick off each leg and squeeze meat out between your teeth.

Enjoy!