Fresh Maine Lobster Rolls

Any guesses what we're making? Nothing reminds me of summer more than a fresh, creamy lobster roll. With just a few ingredients, making the perfect lobster roll at home requires the right technique and nothing more. I live in Boston, which is the lobster roll capital of the world, and we're also very close to Maine, which is where the best lobsters in the world come from. So these lobsters that you're looking at right here were literally caught fresh this morning by my friend Captain Kurt, who's a lobsterman up in Maine, and he drove these down to me and dropped them off just minutes ago. So these lobsters are as fresh as they can possibly get. I like to start my lobster rolls off by steaming my own lobster and getting fresh meat. The first thing we'll do for steaming lobsters is fill the bottom of a pot with just a bit of water, maybe an inch, inch and a half. You can see there's barely any water in here. We're not boiling the lobsters, we're steaming the lobsters. The most important first step before you cook a lobster is to remove these rubber bands. If you smell one of these, they smell terrible. And if you leave these on your lobsters when you're cooking them, it's gonna taste like rubber. So if you ever see anybody cooking their lobsters with the rubber bands on, I would stop listening to them because they don't know what they're doing. To put my lobsters to sleep before they go into the pot, I like to lay down a towel, then place them all down, then we cover them up. And I'm not gonna show you this part, but one quick crunch and they go to sleep. Supposedly that's the nicest thing to do before you cook them. Then we'll move over to our pot of boiling water and in they go. You don't wanna overcrowd your pot, but as long as they all fit, you can place on that lid. These lobsters are about one and a half pounds, so they're gonna cook for about 10 to 11 minutes, but I'll put a nice lobster steaming time chart here on the screen for any of you who are gonna steam your own lobsters. Once these are done, check to make sure your lobsters are fully red all the way around. If you happen to find any large dark spots, it may mean you need to cook just a little bit longer. Immediately place all your lobsters into a bowl to halt the cooking process. And then it's time to open them all up. I remove the tail and the claws. Believe it or not, my favorite thing in the whole lobster is actually drinking the juice out of the claw. And with the head, you can save this for stock and then chew on all the legs. There's still some juice and meat in there. I'll do the same thing for all three of my lobsters and then just remove all the meat. When you spend this much money on lobster, you wanna make sure to get every last bit of meat. So if you decide to make lobster rolls from scratch like I am, make sure you know how to remove all that meat. I have plenty of other videos explaining that. When it comes to the claws, you can use a cracker or you can use a knife like that. If your lobster's soft shell, you can also just crush open into it with your hands and all that meat should come right out. I think the claws have the best tasting meat in the entire lobster. So if I ever wanna make someone a perfect, perfect lobster roll and if I'm being really picky, I might just make it with all those beautiful claw meat morsels. Sometimes when I'm breaking open lobsters, I try to see if I can get all that claw meat out in one piece just like this. Once I've collected all my meat, I'm gonna toss this in the fridge to cool down a bit while we prep our other ingredients. We will start by chopping up some celery. The reason I use celery in my lobster rolls is because I feel like it gives a really, really nice crunch and texture. And just like when I think about any food, I think all the time about balance. And with my lobster rolls, I want them to have a nice balance of hot and cold, of soft and chewy and crunchy. I want them to have a little bit of everything. I like to chop the celery up nice and fine. Definitely not too big, but also not too small. Some people also like to add a little bit of celery salt if they're using celery, but I tend to let the lobster meat speak for itself. I also like to chop up a few chives. These tend to give a really nice flavor, but also a nice pop of color on the top of those lobster rolls. And then very important is the bread. You need to choose rolls that will give you a nice, soft and fluffy texture, but not overpower your whole lobster roll. And the way that I prepare these is slicing off the ends because I'm gonna toast the sides of these to give a really, really nice crust, as well as some nice buttery flavor. And now that everything is prepped out, I'll grab my lobster meat from the fridge. Once again, place this down in the center of my cutting board. I forgot that sometimes lobster meat will sort of stain your cutting board. So I'm going to use a secondary cutting board for this. And then I'll chop up all that lobster meat into small bite sized pieces. This is also a really great time to make sure that there's no shell because there's nothing worse than biting down into a lobster roll that you've spent a bunch of time on and then getting a big piece of shell. I like to leave all the lobster meat about this size. It gives a nice chewy texture, but not too much. And it shows that it actually came from a real lobster, but it often tastes even better and is more fun to eat if you have different sizes throughout. So it's okay if all your lobster meat ends up being slightly different sizes. Just make sure there aren't any pieces that are too big. I need to taste a piece to make sure it's not poisonous. It's not. Now to put everything together, add all your chopped lobster meat to a bowl. See what I mean by the cutting board being all stained. Then add in your celery, a few of those chives, but I like to save a couple more for the top. Then a generous shower of lemon zest. That's where you really get that lemony flavor. And it's also nice to add in a little squeeze of lemon juice because all of that acidity helps to cut down that fatty and creamy flavor of the mayonnaise. Last but not least, I'll add some fresh cracked pepper, a small pinch of salt, and a little bit of this secret seasoning blend. Kind of like Old Bay, but it's secret, so I can't tell you what it is. And now we mix. The goal with a good lobster roll mix is making sure that that mayonnaise mixture just barely coats the outside of each piece of lobster. You still want to be able to see all those nice, beautiful colors on the lobster meat. Nothing should be overpowering the lobster. Give it a taste, a little more lemon, little more lemon zest, tiny bit more secret seasoning, and a little salt should do it. I'll set this back in the fridge one more time while I toast off my buns. For this part, add a generous amount of butter into a pan, just enough that you get a nice, good thick layer of butter built up on the bottom and make sure to fully coat each side of each of your rolls with that butter. Now what's going to happen as these toast is the inside of each bun is going to get really fluffy as it captures all that moisture, while the outsides get nice and crispy for some really incredible texture. Get it golden, but not too golden and constantly move them around as you cook. This is exactly what I'm going for. Do not get too excited about the lobster in the fridge and rush this process. This is a very, very important part of your lobster roll. And if you spent all that time making the filling incredible and then don't give it a good bun to sit in, you're going to regret it. The longer you toast them, the more delicate they'll become because the inside will get so steamy. These all look perfect. I'm going to pull these onto a sheet tray and then add some more butter into my pan because my finishing touch for the perfect lobster roll is some brown butter. Cook that butter for just a few seconds and pour it off. Once it gets nice and golden brown. Now it's time to plate. Carefully open up your roll, which is going to be hot and steamy. And if you've done it right, might even burn your fingers as you open it up with all that steam and pack it generously with all that lobster meat. By the way, this is when you have to work fast. The whole point of these lobster rolls is that contrast between a really hot bun and this cold, creamy meat. To finish it off, I'll add a nice foamy drizzle of that brown butter that we just made. I'll top it off with a little bit more lemon zest and just one last pinch of chives. I like to plate my lobster rolls, just like I had them growing up on a cheap plastic tray with a nice big pile of potato chips and always a nice big lemon bunch. And that is the perfect lobster roll. Nobody touched that. That's mine.