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In honor of July 4th, Independence Day, I am going to school all of you in the preparation of a proper New England Lobster Roll. To the visitor to New England (“from away” as you’re known here) I will warn you that there are dining establishments that claim to serve lobster rolls, but most are merely pretenders, poseurs. They serveth not the True, the Honest, the Original Lobster Roll, but merely a tawdry, cheap imitation. Beware, I say! Read here a description of an Authentic New England Lobster Roll and be not cheated! Or better yet, make your own and enjoy them at a third the price!

Ok, so I went on a bit there, but you get the point. I’m going to give you instructions on making a real lobster roll, like we enjoyed as kids here in New England before lobster became a delicacy in Japan and lobster meat became so expensive (like $40/lb) that restaurants began to find ways to cut it, add fillers and otherwise cheapen one of America’s most delicious summer treats.

Ingredients:

1. Lobster meat. You can make six well-packed lobster rolls with two 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 pound live lobsters. Or you can buy about 1 pound of pre-picked lobster meat, which will cost you dearly, chummy. Now right here I want to emphasize that a True Lobster Roll is filled with only lobster meat, not some abomination of Lobster Salad, which has celery, gobs of salad dressing, and god knows what other fillers in it so it ends up being cheaper to make. No. Use lobster and only lobster.

2. The Roll. If at all possible, use a New England style hot-dog roll, which is different from the rolls you may find elsewhere. These are known in cooking circles (thank you Grace Piper..) as a “top-loader”. Take a look at the first picture in the post. Notice that the roll stands up with the slit at the top through the toasted upper surface. It does not lay on its side.

3. Melted butter and mayo. What is lobster without melted butter? In a lobster roll, the butter is drizzled over the top of the lobster when in the roll. Optionally, one can coat the inside of the roll with a little mayonnaise for flavor, but for god’s sake don’t go overboard here, ok?

That’s it. It’s as simple as dirt and much better tasting.

Process:

1. If you’re working with live lobsters (much preferable) get a large pot of water to a rolling boil and throw the lobsters in. Cook for 10 minutes after the water begins to boil again. Remove from water, drain and let cool. You can get a bad burn from the residual water left inside the shell. Make sure they’re really cooled.

2. Break the lobsters apart and extract all the meat you can. I use a meat cleaver as a broad plate to break down the claws and knuckles (ie, the claw joints). Be careful to keep bits of broken shell out of the meat. Chop the tails into small enough pieces to fit in the rolls. The picture shows what two lobsters will yield in pure meat. Don’t bother too much with the bodies, as there isn’t enough meat in there to justify the time required to extract it. The bodies can be used to make a great lobster tomato sauce, so you can save them for that if you want.

3. Coat the sides of the rolls with butter and grill them on a skillet to a golden brown. This is a touchstone of a real lobster roll: the butter-grilled roll.

4. If you like mayo, spread a small amount on the inside of the roll, then fill the rolls with the lobster and serve with chips, and maybe some corn on the cob as we did today. They’re always good with beer, although my wife and daughter drank champagne with theirs today. I tried a little and it was excellent!!

Tags: lobster, lobster roll, New England, original