How One of the World's Best Chefs Makes a Perfect Lobster Roll (Michelin Star) | Bon Appétit

I'm Chef Jean-Georges, the chef at The Fulton New York City. And today I'm doing my favorite lobster roll. The Fulton is our first seafood restaurant. We opened about five years ago and it's all based on East Coast seafood. Today we are making a lobster roll, a luxury sandwich. This one changes during the season. The tomato makes it pop. Homemade mayonnaise, different spices. Everything has to be spicy for me in the summertime. And then a couple of chips next to it. But first, let's cook the lobster. So this lobster is about a pound and a half. I want to get two lobster rolls out of this. This is the female. I'd have smaller claw, larger tail. I like the tail meat better than the claw meat. Lobster has to be really moving a lot when you hold it. It's nice. Many times you can see all the claw, all the membranes. When you have a dead lobster, the meat usually gets very mushy and soft. You can buy lobster meat if you like, but it's probably been on ice or in the fridge for a long time. You can see how shiny it is. It's not been in a tank, for sure. It's been a live lobster from the wild. So the best way to cook a lobster is to either steam it. The steaming, sometimes they empty themselves. When you boil it, it seals the meat. It really cooks perfectly. It stays perfectly moist. Are we ready? Are you ready? Heads down. Here we go. Fast boil. You can see it's already red. And it's going to cook for about eight to ten minutes. Here we are. Here's a beautiful lobster. Nice and steamy. Never saw the fridge and never will. To see if the lobster is cooked, it would be to crack open the tail, but then you put it back in the water, you wash the flavors away. So in the summer, the shell is a little more tender. Trust me, I mean, it's a good time. We're going to let it cool in the shell, so it's going to continue to cook all the way through. In the meantime, I'm going to show you how to make my spicy mayonnaise. There's so many types of lobster roll, but I like the mayonnaise one. You don't have to do your own mayonnaise, but it's so easy to do. So it's two egg yolk, a little bit of mustard. I start with a pinch of salt. And then some grape seed oil or sunflower oil, something neutral. So it's like an emulsion. Emulsion is when you really mix something solid or something liquid. You can do this in a blender, but by hand is easy as well. Even lemon juice and olive oil is an emulsion. You can make a vinaigrette, which is nice and tight. But this is an ancient recipe, mayonnaise, egg yolk, mustard, oil. You have to mix constantly, because otherwise it would break. You want it smooth, thick, but not too thick. I'm going to add a little olive oil for flavor. So I mix both oil. You see, when you put the oil in there, it breaks. And then you have to emulsify it. A little more salt. What's important to really make it lighter, a little bit of lemon juice. So the acid really balances the oil, the yolk, the heaviness of the yolk. As soon as you add an acid, vinegar or lemon, it changes color a little bit, it gets lighter. And now we're going to spice it up. This is a Thai chili sauce, sriracha, some Old Bay. This is classic American from the South. You know, you do a pre-fish boil without reading. I smell cayenne pepper, clove, allspice, star anise, maybe a little cinnamon. Delicious. There we are. So this is good on anything, even on a burger, I think. Mayonnaise is done. Now we're going to prep the lobster. Usually remove the claw, like this. A little twist on the tail. There we are. You can use scissors if you like. I'll just push it out. There we go. Then I'm going to just cut it. Remove the intestine here and cut it into nice chunks. It's not too small. I like to use all the meat. I'm going to remove the claw. Tell me this is more meaty, this is a little more rubbery. So I'll remove this. I like to remove the other part of the claw. So when you do this, I'll remove the claw. So the claw meat is a little firmer. This piece is almost like a rubber, but it's delicious to eat. The meat, when it's cooked, it just falls right out. Cut in big chunks as well. I like to use scissors for this part. This is the knuckle meat. So just open up, remove the meat. It's a nice bite. You want to use everything from the lobster. There we go. Yeah, this part is really delicious. You can use a hammer, you can use something to crack it a little more. Or we use probably 50, 60 lobsters a day. So this is a really popular dish. Takes time, you know, to do all this, but we cook it every day fresh. I like to just eat some of the legs. There's not much meat in there, but a lot of juice. You can see, not that much meat. Probably eight ounces from a pound and a half lobster. And we're going to make my salad. We're almost ready to eat it. In the summer, I like to use tomato because it really brings a nice burst of freshness, you know, when you bite into a lobster, which is meaty. And then you have a half a tomato. It's like Parisian. I call them salt and gold. I cut them in half. And then the larger one, I cut them in quarters. Some tarragon, not too small. You want to chisel the leaves because you want to taste it as well. Tarragon is a very unique herb. Very anise flavor. Lots of aroma. It makes your tongue tingle. It's a great herb to have. Here we are. I'm adding a little lemon zest. It's just a burst of summer. Then the mayonnaise, a couple of tablespoons. You're going to mix it up. A little more. I'm going to try the tomato. Wow. I need to put a little more lemon juice in there. It's so rich with the mayonnaise that you want to make sure the flavors are bright with the lemon, the spices, the tarragon, the sriracha, the mustard, tomato. It's magic. So we're making here some potato chips, but a little fancy. I call them potato gophrets. It's just a great contrast to have potato chips with a lobster. I use a madeleine. So you go one way, the other way. Beautiful, lacy gophrets. This is similar to waffle fries, just a little thinner. It gets very crunchy because it's a lattice. The oil goes through it and it gets much crispier. So you have to wash them to get the starch away and then dry them. And we just fry them in clarified butter. It's a butter that you melt until you remove the buttermilk from it. So it's pure fat, but it's butter. You can use oil as well, but I think the flavor of the clarified butter is very tasty. So when you do potato gophrets like that, the little holes, the oil goes through and it really makes it a crisper chip. It dries faster too. This one is ready. You can do a shallow fry like this. This is like a home technique. You can tell when they start getting ready. The edge is crispy, you don't want it too dark. I think it's important for a restaurant where you try to be as artisanal as you can, from the mayonnaise to the chips to cook your own lobster. We could open a bag of chips. You can buy the mayonnaise, you can buy the lobster meat, but I think people come to us for homemade, quality ingredients. But they smell like butter now. So it's a different potato than a regular chip, you know. Just drain them a little bit. Smell of butter. My God. So we're going to season with some salt. I like to use kosher salt and then some mulled vinegar. I'm using potato rolls. Martins. Very simple, classic. It has to be soft, you know. You could use brioche, but it becomes very rich. I want to feel like I'm somewhere in Maine. I think a little butter with the lobster makes a big difference. So I like to trust my buns. You could put it in the oven, but it dries pretty fast. So I just want the edge to be crispy. The flavor of the butter inside the bun. Here we are. Very quick, simple. Magic. So now it's time to add our lobster salad into the roll. So much goodness here. You can see the tomato, lobster. One I always leave a little bit for myself. Couple leaves of tarragon. Extra flavor. Some chips. Here we have a little bit of mulled vinegar. More chips. Voila. Here we have a lobster roll. Tomato, tarragon on a gaufret potato. Chips. Wow. Succulent. Really good. Creamy lobster. Tomato. I think what jumps out is really the tarragon. Sriracha. I see the mayonnaise with the old bay. Lemon. Mustard. Yeah, probably not the fanciest way to do lobster, but the most delicious. Can't go wrong.