Grilled Lobster

If you are like me, you love lobster (yum!) but hate the thought of cooking something alive (eek!). Beyond the initial eek factor, I also find lobster extremely difficult to cook evenly — the claws stay raw, the tail over cooks, or the entire thing ends up as chewy as an eraser. At a certain point, it just becomes easier to go to a restaurant and pay the exorbitant prices for the stupid thing.

But with lobster prices hovering around $5 or $6 a pound at some places (such as my perennial favorite, Stew Leonard's), it becomes pretty hard to justify coughing up $30+ a pound for restaurant lobster. The great news is, if you have a grill (or a grill pan) and a really sharp knife, you can end up with delicious, evenly cooked, slightly smokey lobsters — the perfect summer dish. It seriously turns out so delicious that I actually don't have any photos of the finished, uneaten lobster, because we ate it all so quickly.

You can start with whole, live lobsters, if you have a person with a good enough constitution that they don't mind killing a few crustaceans. (Warning: even the most hardened men often have a hard time with this, particularly when the women in their lives bond with and give nicknames to said crustaceans. Do not name your lobsters. This never ends well for anyone involved.) If they are live, you literally have to cut them in half. This is not fun and makes a mess.

The easier way to do it is to request that the fish guys at the grocery store cut and clean your lobsters for you (they should do this at no cost). Ask for them cut lengthwise in half, as pictured below, and cleaned (this just means they removed the nasty green guts). If doing yourself, cut them in half with a very, very sharp knife, then rinse off the green guts (water will do the trick here).

Once your lobsters are halved and cleaned, heat the grill on one side. Brush with olive oil or butter (you do not need much, just a light brushing). Place the lobsters on, shell down, with the claws on the hot side of the grill. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until the shell is red, and then flip over. Cook for another 5 minutes or until the meat is opaque and there are slight char marks on the tail meat. If your lobsters have very large claws, these may need to cook longer — using a very sharp knife, cut the claws off and cook in shell for 1-2 more minutes on each side, until the shell is bright red.

Serve immediately, with lemon slices and enough crackers that people don't need to fight over them. This preparation is so good that you actually don't need any butter, but if you like, serve with drawn butter as well.