What’s on the Grill #158
Grilled Lobster Tail with Chili-Lime Butter! I love Lobster, but the rare times I plunk down the cash to buy Lobster out (and I’m not talking fine dining at the Dead Lobster), I’m usually disappointed. On the contrary, whenever I have had it prepared at home, whether it be mine or friends, it is delish. This incredibly subjective and rather non-scientific take on Lobster has nothing to do with my cooking skills. Shellfish is probably one of these easiest things to make. You take live a crustacean who was performing a race across the kitchen floor with it’s tank mate seconds before and dump it into large pot of boiling water. Several minutes later you have high dining. If Lobster’s were terrorists, they would go to the grave with few secrets. So, where am I going? Two frozen lobster tails for $16 at Sam’s, that’s where.
As I patrolled the warehouse club in my abnormally large shopping cart filled with more toilet paper and paper towels some third world counties see in a year, I spotted my lobster bargain. Yes they arrived somewhat “preassembled”…or rather “dissembled” and yes, they are frozen, but to me, they are heaven.
The other night I yanked a tail out of the freezer and set to defrosting it. I thought about redoing the curry butter recipe from the book of Senior Flay, but decided to cruise Epicurious to find something different. I landed on a recipe from Dr. BBQ, aka the great Ray Lampe.
Grilled Lobster Tail with Chili-Lime Butter
Adapted from Ray "Dr. BBQ" Lampe's The NFL Gameday Cookbook via Epicurious,com
Chili-Lime Butter
1 cup (8 ounces) butter
Juice of 2 limes
2 tablespoons ancho chili powder
Salt & Pepper
Lobster Tail(s)
Prepare the grill for direct medium heat.
Prepare your lobster tail. In my case, I opened a package containing a frozen lobster tail and defrosted it under running cold water. Take the thawed lobster tail and place it upside down on a cutting board. With a sharp knife, slice the tail open lengthwise.
The knife will probably not go all the way through to the cutting board, so…flip the tail over and continue by using poultry shears to cut down the top of the tail.
when done, it should look like this:
Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Add the lime juice and ancho chili powder. Salt to taste.
Prepare a large pot of salted boiling water. Drop the lobster tail in the pot for about 6 minutes and remove. It will not be cooked through (in other words, to avoid a trip to the hospital, it’s not done…don’t eat it yet!). Grill the lobster tail, shell side down, for an additional 6 minutes, or until the flesh is opaque. While grilling, baste the lobster with the curry-lime butter. Watch for flare-ups, butter burns!
The butter added an interesting dynamic to the lobster. Tasting the butter by itself scared me a little (I didn’t really like it!), but with the lobster it was quite nice. Definitely something I would have again. The best part about this meal? I still have one frozen lobster tail to grill in the coming weeks. Good thing to. After all the toilet paper and paper towels I bought, I’m not due back to Sam’s for some time!