11 Chef-Approved Tips To Upgrade Your Lobster Dinner
The very best lobster dinner begins at the fishmonger’s market, where you’ll want to take care to select only the freshest. “I buy them on the day I intend to cook them,” says Chef Steven Richard of Paddlefish Restaurant at Disney Springs in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, “and always ask my fishmonger to show me each one before packing them up. If they don’t look angry, I don’t buy them.” Once you’ve made your purchase, it’s time to choose your recipe — Richard warns against trying to add too many bells and whistles. “The foundation of all successful cooking is to start with the best ingredients, to understand them well, and to find ways to let them be what they are,” Richard notes. “Very often, the best approach is the simplest one. Lobster is one of the best expressions of this way of thinking.” With that in mind, he and other experts shared with Mashed their best tips on everything from killing a lobster humanely to cooking it to perfection and choosing the ideal accompaniments so you end up with a restaurant-quality lobster dinner every time. At Paddlefish, chef Steven Richard says he serves lobster in the seafood boil kettle, which is seasoned “aggressively” with salt, lemon, and a custom spice blend. “It’s also important to note that the seafood boil kettle runs all day and becomes more flavorful over time,” he says.
