Summer for a Night - Lobster Tails on the Grill

Apr 29

Apr 29 Summer for a Night - Lobster Tails on the Grill

I actually wasn’t going to post this meal but it turned out so delicious and was so easy that I figure, “why not?”. I think I mentioned before that I’ve become a huge fan of Chef’s Warehouse - reason being it’s my youngest son’s roommate’s family’s business…and I wanted to support them in the midst of all this. This isn’t a sponsored ad or anything - I just have been incredibly impressed with their quality and timeliness and wanted to share. Anyway, they had Lobster Tails available ($48 for 4!) and I had this craving…figured I would wait for a great day / night and it happened yesterday!

My order arrived before 8 am and it was a beautiful, sunny day plus we were getting the Blue Angels overhead (which we couldn’t really see from my house) and it seemed like the all-American thing to do. While I have made Lobster Tails before, I felt like I needed a refresher course so I turned to google and YouTube and found two videos…they had different ways of cutting through the tail and I opted to go with the one that seemed easiest for three of my tails and just try the other method on one. Both of them were excellent although I thought the one where you pull the tail meat up and over the shell was a little more tender. Either way, we had no leftovers among the three of us. I added baked potatoes and grilled asparagus and a simple arugula salad and served it all with a Robert Sinskey Abraxas (2013) to complement the meal.

For a brief moment it conjured up images of the beach, The Clam Bar (out on Route 27 towards Montauk) and warm summer days. This meal served three.

Ingredients

4 Lobster Tails - ours came frozen, I thawed them out in the fridge but towards the end of the day I needed to put them in a ziplock bag with warm water to thoroughly thaw them out.

2 bunches of Asparagus - break off ends

3 Idaho Potatoes

Arugula

2 Lemons, cut in half (you are going to grill these)

Unsalted Butter, 4- 6 garlic cloves, smashed and fresh squeezed Lemon Juice and fresh parsley. Kosher Salt & Freshly ground Pepper

Parmigiano (optional) for the salad

Sour Cream or Greek Yogurt (for the baked potato)

Lemon, Olive Oil, Kosher Salt & Freshly ground Pepper

Directions

About 2 hours before you are planning on serving, preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Clean your potatoes and punch holes in them with a knife or fork.

I rub a little bit of Olive Oil on the potatoes, put them on aluminum foil and toss some kosher salt & pepper on them.

Stick them in the oven on the aluminum foil (easy clean up!) and just let them bake until you are ready to eat.

For the asparagus, I break the end of them off with my hands. You can just cut it but I always was taught that there’s a natural break and it’s easy enough. I tossed them in a bowl, drizzled olive oil, salt & pepper on them and do the toss in the bowl.

Put your grill on. I use a cooling rack on top of the grates of my BBQ so that I don’t lose the asparagus through the grates. Using tongs, put the asparagus on the grill.

Take your thawed lobster tails - here are both methods.

1) You can fan out the tails, then, using a heavy, sharp knife, slice them through the shell straight down to the tail but DON’T go through the fin part. you can them open up the lobster like a book.

2) Using a scissor, cut down the shell to the tail but, again, DON’T cut through the fin part. Using your fingers, ease the lobster meat away from the shell, gently separating the meat and the shell and then taking the whole lobster tail meat, put it above the shell.

Check your asparagus, turning them so they are getting nice and crispy brown all over.

Melt a stick of butter with the smashed garlic, add lemon juice and Kosher Salt & Pepper

Take the asparagus off the grill, put the tails and the lemon halves directly on the grill.

Baste the tails with the butter mixture. Flip the tails onto their flesh side and grill for about 4 minutes. Check, flip over to the shell side for about 3 minutes and baste with the butter mixture again.

At this point, the tails that had been split like a book were ready. The one that I’d pulled the flesh out needed another minute or so.

Take the lobsters off the grill, put a lemon half on top and you are ready!

For the salad, I used a microplane and grated the parmigiano directly onto the arugula, drizzled Virgin Olive Oil on top, Drizzled about double the amount of fresh squeezed lemon juice and added Kosher Salt & Freshly ground Pepper on top, toss!

ChowBella!