OMG! We got a gift certificate in the mail today.

[hippywife]

A friend in MA sent it to us. It's for 4 lobsters and 4 pounds of steamers. The lobsters are freakin' live and I really, really don't want to have to personally kill another critter, let alone four more! x(

[Stinky The Clown]

1. Send. Them. To. Me.

I will dispatch them with aplomb .......


.... and probably a big knife, too.

[hippywife]

2. You know,

I just knew you would respond and what you would suggest. :rofl:

It IS lobstah dinner for four. You and Sparkly are invited to come out to OK and share as long as you do the cooking. How are you with a buerre monte?

[Stinky The Clown]

3. Simple is best with such fine crustacea as are lawbstuh

To the grill with them. Some butter and no more.

(I was forced to watch Elizabeth the other night. You'll have to suffer through the aftermath with me :) )

[Sparkly]

4. If I may interject...

You stayed awake through Elizabeth, AND The Duchess the night before that!!

Further, steamed is better than grilled.

[hippywife]

6. LOL.

Sounds like you're having some enjoyable movie evenings. And your interjections are always welcome, m'dear. :hi:

[hippywife]

5. I'm certain that's the way it will go down.

I have no experience with this kind of thing at all!

[pengillian101]

8. Wait!

Don't put the lobsters live on the grill. They will scream and claw to get off I would think. It's not as fast as a boiling pot of water. But, I could be wrong.

The company's website will have directions.

Enjoy! :hi:

[Stinky The Clown]

12. Nononono ....... they must first be despatched by a knife point through the brain

That kills them instantly (they do, indeed squirm during the despatching). Once dead, split them and grill with the cut flesh up. A drizzle of butter is favored by some.

When nearly done, turn them, listen to the sizzle of their searing flesh. When marked, remove them and partake.

[tigereye]

24. ah, some how my NE relatives never seemed to know that

[pengillian101]

7. What a great gift you received!

I don't know if you read my post a couple days about my first attempt at crab boiling. But it's the same deal. Bring the water up to a really fast rolling boil. Drop it in and it will die very quickly and (hopefully) humanely.

At a previous job - we had a sales goal to meet. If we met the goal, we would have fresh lobsters flown in and if we didn't, we would get tuna in a can. Goals were met and our whole company dined on fresh lobster. M-m-m! Someone else knew how to cook them and showed us how to properly eat them. We each had a whole one to deal with.
***
As an aside note, I am so bummed out. I love lutefisk and lefse, but it's not always available. Once a year, and I skipped about 5-6 years, so I really wanted it.

It should look like this:

http://www.jsonline.com/multimedia/photos/78609787.html?index=2

Mine was b--a--a--d. It was just a bowl of liquefied jelly. It (honest!) wasn't my cooking that was to blame, as I cut it in half and did it two ways that have always worked before.

What a disappointment.

But, hey the lefse is still damn good!

***
Edit to add:

I'd be happy to help with your lobster :hi:

[kfred]

10. Lutefisk? You made me giggle

I still haven't tasted it, though I fixed it using the
"Two Fat Ladies" recipe for potted kipper.   Lutfisk
into a pitcher with hot water, lemons, capers and a bit of
allspice.  Change water frequently.  Then I micro'ed it for
about 5 minutes with butter and fresh lemon and capers.  I
took it out of the Microwave, set it on the buffet behind me
while attending to other dishes.  I turned around and it was
gone and I don't mean into the garbage.  Comments of: ooh,
like lobster, fresh walleye, oh, who the heck knows what it
tasted it like.  I'll fix it again, probably the same way. 
Pretty easy and no fussin' except for remembering to change
the hot water.

SIL makes the lefse.  She's not allowed into the Christmas
house without it and her diabetic coma cookies.

[pengillian101]

27. You made me giggle.

Same here, ya little stinker :-)

[Warpy]

9. C'mon, they're BUGS

If you've ever stepped on a bug, you can kill a lobster.

If it helps, you can rely on the fact that while they recognize noxious stimuli, they don't have the equipment to process actual pain.

If you steam them live, they will flop. You might hear a whistling noise, that's air trapped under the shell being pushed out.

You can also use a hammer and a sharp knife to brain them before they go into the pot, but make sure they go right into the pot. They release digestive juices into their flesh the second they die, which is why you need to get them live and off them yourself.

Some people think sticking them in the freezer for half an hour or so before they go into the pot narcotizes them. I just think it makes them die slower.

In any case, they'll be dead within 10 seconds of hitting the pot. Since any of the natural deaths they'd be likely to face take much longer, think of it as euthanasia.

Then enjoy them.

But they are bugs, you know.

[kfred]

11. Get 'em drunk first

Split the bottle of wine between your self and them. Both of you will do better for it. They won't feel the pain and supposedly relax and are more tender that way, you? You end up being de-sensitized.

A story: I bought some live lobsters at a chain grocery store for a special occasion. First kidlet and I were carrying them in their thin cardboard boxes to the car. Lo and behold two of the boxes dropped out with the lobsters scrambling across the parking lot. We heard a fair amount of laughter at us as we scrambled to grab them back. Good thing for rubber band thingies on their claws.

[tigereye]

25. I always think of that scene in Annie Hall - hilarious

[katkat]

13. I'll let them loose

Send the lobsters to me in Rhode Island, and I'll let them loose in our cove, where lobsters already live. I'll send you photos :-) of them on their way to freedom.

I hate walking by lobster tanks in stores, I always want to stage a rescue.

[Warpy]

14. They don't look like food to me

since I spent a whole lot of years on Cape Cod, fully plugged into the barter system that passes for an economy when the tourists all go home.

I understood why the Maine Lege passed a law in colonial times that said feeding prisoners lobster more than three times a week was inhumane. It's something you can get sick of really fast if there's a lot of it around.

Still, they are bugs, and killing them quickly in steam is probably a lot more humane than leaving them to predators that dismantle them a piece at a time.

[hippywife]

15. I don't consider them bugs regardless of

their biological classification, and I do love the flavor. Just don't usually have it often because we don't eat seafood often.

And the bugs in my arena and I have a compromise. If they stay way out of my reach, even if I can see them, they can live. Otherwise I try to let them outside without killing them, if I can.

[katkat]

16. pets

There are a few silverfish in my bathroom occasionally. I think of them as pets.

[Warpy]

22. Oh, I scoop up the wildlife that falls into the tub

and release it outside, mostly Daddy Longlegs spiders but occasionally other species.

It's really a sin to kill a spider. They eat all the bad stuff.

[tigereye]

26. I do that with most spiders, but daddy longlegs usually don't get a pass

[EFerrari]

17. Oh, no!

I couldn't do that if you offered to pay me and feed me and make much of me.

:(

[hippywife]

19. LOL!

You always make me laugh. :D

[hippywife]

18. delete - wrong spot

[Paper Roses]

20. Funny memory: First date with future husband. Out for dinner.

He did all the ordering,I almost died as I listened. I hated the stuff. My parents would buy lobster now and then. I never even tried it, they would not volunteer. The cooking smell sent me to my room, back later for grilled cheese.

I suffered during dinner and just pushed things around my plate with the excuse that I ate too much salad.
Years later, I had to have a series of allergy tests. Big Offender: Lobster. My body was trying to tell me something.

For 45 years I watched him eat that stuff now and then but I had a valid excuse not to just try a taste.

[hippywife]

21. Wow! Interesting story.

Good thing you didn't. :hug:

[tigereye]

23. yeah that always bothered me when I was a kid

my dad is from New England and I hated to see the lobstahs go in the pot. Also crabs and other live shell-fish.


But they do taste really good. Now scallops, that's another matter. One too many not so fresh clamshack dinners at the shore made me despise scallops until very recently.

[pengillian101]

28. 4 lobsters and 4 pounds of steamers. question for ya, HP

What will you do with it all? I ask because my guy just bought a whole a ton (20 pounds) of crab legs - way too much to eat.

I'll probably just vacuum seal most of it. A pal brought over home-made lefse and what a treat

We are not giving any gifts this year, just donating to a local food shelf in northern MN.

I know you don't celebrate Christmas anymore, but I send my best wishes and dishes, ala Paula Dean, to you buddy!

[hippywife]

30. We are going to

order them for delivery on New Year's Eve and then have my MIL and SIL over for early dinner on New Year's Day. That should take care of 'em.

Sealing and freezing should work fine for your crab legs, and I'm so glad you got your lefse.

We only give to my two nieces and nephew and my MIL. Bill has too many nieces and nephews to keep up with and we do donate to charity each month and don't buy each other anything.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday, gilli. Best wishes to you always. :hug:

[Tab]

29. Dead lobsters are no fun

and it's not like you have to chop their head off or anything (although some have tried).

Get a big-assed vat of water boiling, preferably salt water, prepare some clarified butter, and drop them in and cover the vat. You won't hear a peep and in 20 minutes you'll have a delicious seasside dining experience.

Alternatively, you could experiment and prepare them a la Thomas Keller, which I'd love to do one time, and prepare them in beurre monte. Before I heard of this technique I had an exquisite set of lobster tails at a restaurant and had never experienced them prepped however they did it. After I learned the Keller technique I realized that's how they had done it. I haven't tried it myself, but if the results are anything close to what I had at that restaurant, sign me up.

- Tab

[hippywife]

31. Yuh. I've been looking around the net

for instructions since the cert arrived. The buerre monte intrigues me, too. Sounds totally decadent.

:hi:

[Tab]

32. Like most seafood, the cardinal sin in cooking

is overcooking. It's so easy to avoid too, but people don't trust that something is cooked, and forget that food will continue to cook after it is removed from heat.

I always buy raw shrimp and cook it myself. Some things, like trout, can be overcooked but you might not notice, but shrimp, certainly calimari, and lobster can all easily be overcooked, which makes it rubbery and awful compared to properly cooked seafood. You don't need much to cook calimari or shrimp or scallops, but no one believes it. Atrocities like bacon-wrapped scallops (usually as an hors d'ouvre) are typically cooked to death - probably for the bacon, and don't get me started on calimari.

- Tab