Food Safety Specialist. Today I have with me Bob Bayer.

Bob Bayer: I'm Bob Bayer, Executive Director of the Lobster Institute at the University

of Maine, and also Professor of Animal and Veterinary Sciences.

Jason: Today Bob and I are going to be talking about the proper ways to cook and prep lobsters.

Bob: A Maine lobster's probably the icon for Maine. It's our most famous seafood. Probably

internationally, it is the most famous seafood, perhaps, in the world. It's well known for

its flavor. It's the prized seafood.

It's not only good, but it's good for you. It has less total fat and cholesterol than

lean beef, poached eggs, even roasted, skinless chicken breast. It's high in iron, zinc, potassium,

magnesium, calcium, phosphorous, vitamin A, B12, B6, B3, and B2, so it's good and good

for you.

When we buy lobsters in Maine or anywhere else, depending on the time of the year, we

may be buying hard-shell lobsters, shedder lobsters or soft-shell, or new-shell lobsters.

The new-shell lobster tends to have a lesser meat yield. Some people think the flavor is

better. The hard-shell has more meat, but it's certainly harder to get into. Usually

you need a nutcracker, or sometimes a hammer.

The lobsters we're using today are new-shell lobsters. One of the ways you can tell...just

by looking at them. You can touch them. The shell has some give to it. If you turn the

lobster over, if this were a hard-shell lobster, it would be black. There would be bits of

black, it would be very dark, and the lobster would obviously be very hard.

Some people prefer one sex lobster over the other. This is a male. The reason we know

is...We look at the structure right here. In the male, it's armor-plated with shell

material, hard and bony. In the female, the same organ is soft and feathery.

Many people prefer a female. In this female, when it's cooked, there is what's called the

"coral" by the consumer. It's actually the ovary. It's bright red. It's waxy in consistency.

Many people do like to eat that, so they'll ask for a female lobster.

Jason: Let's talk about the most common ways to cook live lobsters. Three most common ways

are boiling, steaming, or grilling them.

Bob: It's best to take the rubber bands off. It's just a good idea to take them off if

you have the time and are not doing mass quantity. A knife works well.

Jason: The first procedure we're going to talk about is boiling. In order to start this

process, you want to get a large stock pot, fill it about three-quarters of the way full

with either sea water, or you could even add salt to tap water. We're going to do that.

It's about a tablespoon of salt per quart of water.

Get this to a rolling boil, and then you want to add your lobsters. Bob has already removed

the rubber bands from these ones. You drop them in, and you bring it back to kind of

a simmer.

The timing for this, how does this work? About 18 minutes for a pound to a quarter-pound

lobster. For anything larger, about one-and-a-half pounds, it's about 20 minutes. If you're using

soft-shells, you want to make sure you reduce this time by approximately three minutes.

Steaming is very similar to boiling. Obviously, you use less water. When you start the actual

steaming process, you're going to use about two inches of water at the bottom of a large

stock pot. You can use sea water or, once again, you can use salted water. Same ratios

apply as boiling.

We want to remove the rubber bands, which has already been done, and you're going to

drop the lobsters in. The cook time is also pretty much the same. For a pound to a pound-and-a-quarter

lobster, you're going to do about 18 minutes. The cook time for over a pound-and-a-half

or about a pound-and-a-half is 20 minutes. You're going to reduce this time by three

minutes if you're talking or using soft-shell lobsters.

If you decide to grill the lobsters, the first thing you want to do is parboil them. Same

procedure as boiling, except you're only going to boil them for about five minutes. Once

the lobsters come to a rolling boil -- you've set them for five minutes -- you want to remove

the lobsters and put them in cold water.

You're going to remove the lobsters and put them in an ice bath. This stops the cooking

process. About 50 percent ice, 50 percent cold water.

After they've cooled down, you're going to remove them from the ice water. Try to remove

as much of the water as possible. After they've been removed from the cold water, they can

be either put into a plastic bag for storage in the refrigerator, or frozen. Or we go onto

the next step, which is grilling.

Bob: This process involves taking our knife and... [sounds of cutting] ...as long as you're

on the center...you open it up. There are a couple things that we will remove. First

is the tomalley, which is right here. The sand sack, but it's actually the stomach. We'll also remove the intestine,

which is in the tail. [crunching sound] Oops.

Sometimes the intestine is hard to see. If it's not full, it's not pigmented. Oh, here

it is. There's the intestine. Often it's full and pigmented, and it's a lot easier to see.

This one is relatively empty. There it is. We'll remove the intestine because sometimes

that can impart a flavor.

Jason: You want to add some kind of butter or olive oil to the lobster before you grill

it. This helps with the sticking and also helps with flavor.

Once you've done the parboiling and you've done all the prep work by splitting the lobster,

you can now put them on the grill. You want to put them on the grill flesh-side down,

making sure to spread the lobster's cavity here as you place it down, and also open up

the tail a little bit. Make sure the tail is folded out like that with the cavity open.

You're going to cook them flesh-side down for five to six minutes. You're going to want

to make sure also that the lid of the grill is put down during this whole process. Then

you're going to flip them and cook them another four to five minutes. You'll want to do it

on relatively low heat because the lobster shell and the meat can burn pretty easily.

One anatomical fact about the lobsters. They have very distinct claws. There's one claw

that's the ripping claw, the ripper claw. It's got serrated edges on the inside here.

It's literally for ripping things or tearing things apart. It's usually smaller than the

other claw, which is the crushing claw, a lot larger. It's used for grasping things

and breaking things. These can switch. They're not always on necessarily the left side or

the right side, they can switch back and forth.

For more information on cooking and preparing lobsters, you can visit the University of

Maine Cooperative Extension website or...

Bob: ...the Lobster Institute website at the University of Maine.