Frugal Lobster Meal: Part I

Okay, so most of you are thinking Frugal and Lobster no way right?  Well I couldn't resist buying this lobster at about 2lbs for a total of $8.28 because it was a really good price.  I did forget that lobsters are not so fatty in the summer but either way I had a lovely Lobster induced food coma this weekend.  And I was able to stretch this out to full blown out meal for two and test future party recipes. I didn't spend any additional money on the meal either whooppee!! aside from the lobster.  And its really great because I think even if you didn't have stuff in the pantry you could improvise and cook this meal for two for under $10 total (if you can catch a lobster sale).

How to utilize whole Lobster in most frugal way:
Leave NO Part unused (except gross intestine, toss that right away so doesn't get mixed up in your soup stock pile)

Before Cooking

• If you boil lobster (a lot of chefs after cleaning lobster, flavor the water as well and keep it for seafood stock for other recipes)
• If you steam lobster (my preferred method, retains juiciness better in my opinion, use super clean pan because you will want to keep juices at bottom of pan for stock)

After Cooking


**Tip some people suggest putting it in Ice Bath right away, I prefer not to because it will freeze up the gooey white stuff you don't want with your main meat.  Its easily separates if you let it cool naturally.

• Gather your meat from legs, claws and tail. Keep shells for your soup stock pile.
• Lastly the body ( most people just throw it away but this is key to my extra dishes )
• Scoop all the Tomalley (greenish stuff) and put to on the side with spoon.  If your lucky to have Roe; do the same.
• Pick the meat of the Body and set aside from main meat.
• Don't touch head; just put in soup stock pile.

=================================================================

Make Seafood Soup Stock:

Take all your discarded shells and boil to make a seafood soup stock.  If you have the ingredients and you know what you want to make you can add your seasonings (eg: shrimp shells, onion, celery, garlic, carrots, etc); other wise I just put in some Ginger and let boil for a while.  If you steamed the lobster, you can add the pan liquid at the end or now if you don't have any plans for the liquid.


If your just informally cooking for you and friend; I'd then get on to eating your lobster! Grab a beer, melt some butter in microwavable dish and start digging in :)

I'll put up my test kitchen experiments later...