"lobster roll" news and stories

If you eat seafood, you have to love the lobster roll, especially when someone else goes to the trouble of cooking and shelling the big old crustacean. The roll above, with a perfectly-toasted bun and creamy seafood, comes courtesy of chef Todd English's Kingfish Hall, in Boston's Faneuil Hall. Here in New York, when I need a lobster-roll fix I head to Pearl Oyster Bar for a no-nonsense, mayo-rich, butter-laden toasted roll and a mondo helping of chunky lobster meat.

If you can cook a lobster without re-enacting the Woody Allen–Diane Keaton lobster-pot scene from Annie Hall, make your own lobster roll with this recipe which includes snow peas and tarragon, or Jennifer Iserloh's recipe, which cuts down on fat by using Greek yogurt.

You might want to check out the late, great and much-missed David Foster Wallace's "Consider the Lobster," which he wrote, in his inimitable style, for Gourmet several years ago. You won't ever crack a lobster claw in the same way again.

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Last taste of summer. Photo: Jennifer Iserloh

I've been craving a lobster roll from Mary's Fish Camp in New York as of late, but since I've already maxed out the bank account with a mini trip to Miami, Mary's will have to wait for October.

I'm hooked on their lobster roll, that's really the only reason I go there. If you are lucky enough to get a table, their "limited" supply lobster roll is at market price, usually around $33.

So here is my healthier (and cheaper) version that you can have at home -- yes, Mary's fans know it's not exactly the same. Yet it's still tasty and satisfies the craving, working out to about $12 a pop.

Summer leaves seafood lovers craving lobster in some incarnation, whether it be tucked into a buttery roll, scattered throughout risotto or luxuriating in the butter-cream bath of lobster Thermidor (thought to have been a favorite of Napoleon).

However you like your lobster, getting to its tender meat can be nightmarish, with spiny claws and juice flying everywhere. Not so in this excellent Howcast video, with a demonstration by chef Marc Murphy of New York City's Landmarc, who knows his way around the leggy critters. Who knew you could either snip open or crush those dastardly knuckles? Or crush the tail under a towel?

The video even ends with a quirky factoid: Boiling lobsters alive in Reggio Emilia, Italy is illegal, with violators facing fines nearing $800. We wonder how many Italians risk it!

[Via Howcast]

Danielle Johnson Walker. Photo: Daniel Doke Photography

When beachgoers dine at the celebrated southern Maine restaurant Arrows and its sister seaside bistro MC Perkins Cove for a ubiquitous lobster roll, it falls to sommelier Danielle Johnson Walker to find an ideal wine to match with what she calls the "lazy man's lobster."

A self-trained sommelier, Walker uses the winter months -- when Arrows is hibernating -- to pair vacations with winery visits throughout South Africa and Europe to add extra oomph to her vino repertoire. As summer kicks into high gear and our hankering for lobster on buttered buns borders on fixation, we quizzed Walker about secret cooking techniques, wines to avoid and what makes lobster rolls so bleeping addictive.

What makes the lobster roll such a great food?
It's the lazy man's lobster. When in Maine, you eat boiled lobster once or twice and after that you have the lobster roll. I don't think it's a food people can get sick of. It's like a good hamburger.

After the jump, the secret the the Arrows lobster roll and why to avoid oaked chardonnays.

After sunscreen, citronella candles and heat rash, does anything say "summer" more unequivocally than a lobster roll?

This baby, captured by VirtualErn at Flickr, appears to be the lobster roll to end all lobster rolls, the embodiment of the deceptively simple art of serving chunks of crustacean, barely dressed in mayonnaise, in a bun. Note the minimal accessories: lemon slices, crisp coleslaw and a drop of mayo. The better the roll, the fewer adornments it requires. If this specimen tastes as good as it looks, it most likely calls out for little more than a good appetite -- and, possibly, a bib.

[Via Flickr]