2000s Recipes + Menus

Lobster with Garlic Butter

Serves2
  • Active Time:15 min
  • Start to Finish:30 min
February 2008
There's enough garlic butter here to drench every morsel of lobster meat—you'll want to serve crusty bread on the side to soak it all up.
  • 2 small garlic cloves
  • 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
  • 2 (1 1/4-lb) live lobsters
  • Garnish:

    lemon wedges; sea salt
  • Preheat oven to 450°F with a large shallow baking pan in upper third.
  • Mince and mash garlic to a paste with 1/2 teaspoon salt, then stir together with butter and parsley.
  • Plunge lobsters headfirst into a large pot of boiling salted water (3 tablespoons salt for 6 quarts water) and cook, covered, 3 minutes from time they enter water. Transfer with tongs to a plate and let stand 5 minutes. (Lobsters will not be fully cooked.)
  • Lightly crack claws, then split lobsters lengthwise and discard innards from body cavity.
  • Remove tail meat from 1 lobster and cut crosswise into 8 pieces. Spread about 2 tablespoons garlic butter in one empty half shell, then fill that shell with all of sliced lobster and dot with 1 tablespoon garlic butter. Spoon about 5 tablespoons garlic butter into other empty half shell (for dipping). Repeat with remaining lobster.
  • Bake in preheated pan until just cooked through, about 6 minutes.
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