After a long (multi year) hiatus from eating lobster, I found myself at a golf outing where one of the dinner appetizers was lobster tail. I immediately wondered how I had gone so long without eating Lobster, and I also realized it was incumbent upon me to make some at home. So, I went to the store and grabbed two and happily presented my find to my wife. She was palpably excited, and then she said, “You know who would absolutely love this? My grandparents!” So we grabbed two more and headed to their house to see them and surprise them with dinner.
With our lobster in the cooler bag, up we went! It was great to catch up (we had a bonus surprise visit from her uncle and cousin too), and we also got to play some pinochle. Side note, I think Gramma should have let me win because of the lobster, but she plays for keeps…so after a resounding defeat at the hands of her and my wife, I headed to the kitchen to get started.
We served the lobster with Garlic and Spinach Spaghetti Squash, freshly baked baguette from an incredible bakery near our house, and a tomato and onion salad that Gramma made. However, this would go very well with fresh corn or any other vegetable with a bit of a natural sweetness to it to support the flavour of the lobster meat!
Time: 30 Minutes
Ingredients:
- Frozen Lobster Tails
- Butter
- Seasonings. We used black pepper and paprika.
- **Kitchen Shears will make your job much easier**
Method:
- Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F.
- Butterfly your Lobster
- Rinse off each tail
- Working one at a time, work your kitchen shears down the middle of the top of the lobster tail, and cut all the way to the start of the tail “flippers.”
- Flip your tail, and with a heavy knife, press down in the middle gently until you hear it crack (this will make the next step much easier)
- Pry open the top of the shell. We squeezed downward on the sides to do this, and it worked pretty well since we’d cracked the bottom of the tail.
- Working with your fingers, gently pry the meat away from where it’s attached on the underside of the tail, and lift until you’ve freed all of the meat except for where it’s attached at the base of the “flippers.”
- Close the shell, lay the meat on top, and remove any “digestive residue” that you may find. Repeat with the rest of your lobster tails. The first one will be slow, but as you get the hang of it, it’ll go much quicker on subsequent tails.
- Once all your tails are butterflied, place them in a baking dish. We alternated the direction they faced so that we could fan out the tails fully for visual effect during plating.
- Sprinkle your seasonings atop your meat.
- Melt a little butter in the microwave, and brush about half of it onto your lobster meat. We used about 1.5 tablespoons of butter for four tails.
- Stash your tails in the oven for about 7-8 minutes. Then, pull them out, and brush the rest of your butter on.
- Cook in the oven for another 7-8 minutes until they reach an internal temperature of at least 145 degrees F.
- Plate, devour, and enjoy!
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