🇺🇸 United States · Maine
Lobster stew
A Maine soup of lobster meat warmed in butter and finished with milk and cream, seasoned with paprika, traditionally rested for hours so the milk takes up the lobster flavour.
Origin and history
Lobster stew is a beloved Maine dish, and Portland Monthly reports that its origins are unclear. One account says it took off around 1910, when a bowl meant for servants was accidentally served to John D. Rockefeller Sr. and his guests; another holds that Maine fishermen's wives made it as a cheap meal from leftover lobster and milk. Earlier lobster recipes exist, among them one in the 1884 Boston Cooking School Cookbook and one in Robert May's 1685 London cookbook.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 4 servings
- Total time
- 50 min
- Hands-on
- 40 min
Ingredients
- 3 live, about 600 to 700 g each3 (1 1/4 to 1 1/2 lb each) lobsters
- 85 g6 tbsp unsalted butter
- 180 ml3/4 cup dry white wine (or dry sherry)
- 2 tsp paprika
- 480 ml2 cups heavy cream
- 720 ml3 cups whole milk
- salt, to taste
- snipped fresh chives, optional, to serve
Method
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1. Steam the lobsters in salted water 6 to 8 minutes, until they turn red.
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2. When cool enough to handle, crack the tails and claws over a bowl to catch the juices, take out the meat, remove the intestinal vein and chop the meat in 2.5 cm (1 in) chunks; return it to the juices.
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3. Scoop out the green tomalley, keeping 1 to 2 tablespoons, and set aside 2 of the empty lobster bodies.
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4. Melt the butter in a heavy pot, add the tomalley and simmer 5 minutes.
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5. Add the wine, bring to a boil and reduce by half, about 5 minutes.
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6. Add the lobster meat with its juices and the paprika and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes.
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7. Stir in the cream and milk slowly and submerge the 2 reserved bodies in the liquid.
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8. Cool to room temperature, cover and refrigerate for at least 6 hours and up to 24 hours.
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9. Remove the bodies, reheat the stew over very low heat, stirring often so it does not curdle or boil, season with salt and serve with chives.
Notes
- Quantities follow Brooke Dojny's recipe for the Portland Press Herald (4 servings as a main course); times above exclude the 6 to 24 hours of resting, which lets the stew improve. Her chives are, in her own words, unorthodox, and she pairs the stew with a vinegary cabbage slaw. Cooks disagree about resting: Portland Monthly reports that some serve the stew immediately and others refrigerate it so the lobster flavour develops.
- Lydia Shire, of Blue Sky in York Beach, Maine, simmers the shells with sherry, milk, cream and seasonings, rests that overnight, and combines it with lobster meat cooked in butter and sherry; the result is close to a bisque.
- Dojny calls the traditional stew very simple: lobster, butter, milk and/or cream, and paprika. Others insist on lobster stock or sherry, and Mainers split on onions, garlic, mustard and potatoes.
- Never let it boil on reheating; the dairy will break. Oyster crackers or buttered bread go well.
Adapted from Portland Press Herald, Classic Lobster Stew (Brooke Dojny) and Portland Monthly, Creme de la Crustacean.
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