Woodman

This was submitted from one of our summer customers…

The other day, I had a traditional New England clambake catered by Woodman’s of Essex on a beach north of Boston, Massachusetts. I was left with six 1 ¼ pound freshly cooked lobsters because I ordered a twin lobster dinner for each of my guests and not everyone ate their second lobster, so now I am worried about what to do with all these fresh lobsters.

The helpful catering crew explained to me that I had 4 hours from the time the lobsters were cooked to get them into a refrigerator in order for them to stay fresh. The lobsters were alive when they arrived at our event and were cooked on site just minutes before they were served to my guests, so I had about an hour to make room in my house for this fresh seafood after the clambake ended. The clambake staff also told me that if I keep the lobsters in their shells, they will last for 5 days as long as they are put in a cold refrigerator. If I shuck the lobsters and take out the lobster tails, lobster claws, and other delicious lobster meat, it will only last about 3 days. So here I am, with a refrigerator full of lobster and lots of ideas on lobster recipes to experiment with.

I decided to invite five of my best friends over for some homemade lobster stew. I made the lobster stew with a simple family recipe of fresh lobster meat, milk, heavy cream, salt, pepper, and paprika with a dash of dry sherry for flavor.  I used the lobster bodies as the base for the stock, about three of my leftover lobsters resulted in 6 servings of my lobster stew.

The next day, I was going through my fridge trying to think about different lobster filled meals that I could create without going to the store. For lunch I had a lobster grilled cheese, I simply took two slices of bread and buttered them up on a skillet, pulled out some Havarti cheese and shucked out a lobster claw to really spice up the sandwich. The whole meal only took about 5 minutes to make and was delicious!

My final plan is to shuck the remaining three lobsters and make some traditional lobster rolls for a family day at Crane’s beach on the Essex River. I simply added mayonnaise and a splash of vinegar and sugar and mixed it with the fresh lobster meat.  If you are really fancy you could even add some avocado to the mix!  Even after 3 days straight of lobster, I don’t think I will ever get sick of eating the fresh and local treat!