Butter-Poached Maine Lobster with Leeks, Pommes Maxim, and a Red Beet Essence

Summer's almost here, and you know what that means!?!?! Yeah, me neither.

Oh wait, that's right. LOBSTER!

After the two desserts I just did out of the French Laundry Cookbook, I was hankerin' for something a little more substantive. So, I chose this lobster dish because it sounded really good. Since the recipe called for three 2-lb. lobsters, I thought to myself, "how excellent would it be for my fantastic FrenchLaundryAtHome readers if I came up with hilarious names for the lobsters?" I'm so customer service-oriented it's scary sometimes, isn't it? (don't answer that)

But naming the lobsters wasn't as easy as you might think:
Moe, Larry and Curley = too obvious
Winken, Blinken and Nod = too boring
Peter, Paul and Mary = too old
Star Wars 1, 2 and 3 = too confusing
Barry, Robin and Maurice = one of 'em is already dead, so no
Alvin, Simon and Theodore = yeah, um, no

Finally, I settled on Britney, Lindsay and Paris. But when I picked up the lobsters from the market, I noticed they were from Canada, so I knew I had to honor their heritage and name them after famous Canadians, but more importantly, famous Canadians no one would be upset about when their lobster counterparts kicked it in a tub of boiling water.

With that in mind, I called members of my lobster-naming strategy team who came up with the following suggestions:

Terrence, Phillip and Baby Ike
Bryan Adams, Alanis Morissette and Shania Twain
Wayne Gretzky, Brian Orser and Elvis Stoyko
Gordon Lightfoot, Geddy Lee and Neil Peart
Pamela Anderson, Avril Lavine and Neve Campbell
Dan Aykroyd, Rick Moranis and Jason Priestley
Paul Shaffer, Martin Short and Kiefer Sutherland

Wow, Canada. That's a lot of people from your country we find sort of annoying. You might want to work on that. (KIDDING. I love you, Canada. You're awesome. Really, you are.) But the most obvious lobster name choice was apparent from the very moment "name one Canadian you can't stand" came out of my mouth, and without fail the first name that sprung from everyone's lips was:



But I had three lobsters, so what to name the other two? The awesomely evil and lovely Catherine suggested I name them Celine, René Angelil, and René SHAAAAALLLLLRRRRRRLLLLLLLLz, but we decided it was too mean to name a soon-to-be-dead lobster after a 3-year old child who did nothing wrong in being born to annoying parents.

So, with that, I give you:

Celine:


Celine:


And, Celine:


Now that you've met my three Celines, let's watch them become dinner. Here's the before shot of the lobsters in their tub:


Then, I boiled some water, and added a bit of distilled white vinegar to the water before pouring it onto the lobsters:




They steeped for about two minutes, maybe three, and looked like this:


I removed the claws and put those back in the hot water to steep for another five minutes.

The reason the lobsters are cooked this way is because you cook the meat just enough to get it out of the lobster, but it's fully cooked by POACHING IT IN BUTTER, which I'm sure you can guess is something I was looking forward to. I'm not exactly the master of subtlety, as I'm sure you're quickly learning.

While the claws were steeping, I removed the meat from the tails, cleaned the bodies and froze them for stock, and then removed the meat from the claws. I don't have photos of all these stages because they had to be done quickly while the lobsters were still hot. And, I had lobster goop all over my hands and didn't want to funk up my camera. I'm sure you understand. You'll see the various lobster pieces when they are POACHED IN BUTTER later on in the process, I promise. By the way, did you know that I had to POACH the lobster IN BUTTER for this recipe? Because I did.

Let's get some of the other steps out of the way first, one of which is the beet essence. I simmered a cup of beet juice for about an hour until it reduced to about 2-3T of glaze. I did this a few hours before serving while I was on a conference call with a client. To finish it for the dish, I brought it back up to a simmer and whisked in the butter, red wine vinegar and lemon juice. It's the first thing on the plate, so you'll see the final product in my plating photo.

The next thing I prepped a little early were the Pommes Maxim (which originated at Maxim's in Paris). I peeled and very-thinly sliced two medium Yukon Gold potatoes on my mandoline and tossed them in melted clarified butter until they were well coated. I laid them on my Silpat in an overlapping fashion and sprinkled them with salt. I then baked them in a 300-degree oven for 45 minutes. Here are the before and after shots:




And now for the leeks. First, you take a leek (HA!)... okay, I'm twelve. Sorry. I thinly sliced about a cup and a half of leek rounds (white and light green parts) and blanched them. After their ice bath, I warmed them in a saucepan and added the tomato diamonds, chives, brunoise and butter. I won't bore you with photos of the prep for the brunoise or tomato diamonds because you've seen them before, but here is what the final leek mixture looks like:



And now.... the pièce de résistance (or "piece of resistance" as Sandra Lee says). Lobster poached in butter. I mean, LOBSTER POACHED IN BUTTER!!! WHOOOOO-HOOOOOOO!!!!!! Earlier, I took the lobster meat out of the refrigerator and brought it up to room temperature, and then put it in one layer in a large saucepan and covered it all with butter in which it poached for about 6 minutes. Here's the lobster before it went into a saucepan full of butter for poaching:



To plate, I started with small spoonful of beet essence:


Next, went a heaping spoonful of the leek mixture:


That was topped with some lobster tail and a claw:


Last, a piece of the Pommes Maxim on top:


If you think this looks good, I wish you could be here to taste it. All of you. But bring your own lobster, I'm not Thurston Howell the Third. The lobsters were a lot of work, that's for sure, but this was all so delicious -- the combination of beets, lobster and potatoes are gorgeous. Doing the lobster this way makes it so tender that it almost feels like it's undercooked, even though it's not. Big thumbs up, all around.



In closing, I leave you with a moment, a memory, a song to commemorate the awesomeness that was this dish and the lobsters that made it all possible: R.I.P Celine, Celine and Celine. R.I.P. You were delicious.




Up Next: Dungeness Crab Salad with Cucumber Jelly, Grainy Mustard Vinaigrette, and Frisée Lettuce (ooo, a Thomas Keller-Nancy Drew mystery on this dish: Frisée in the recipe title, yet no frisée in the recipe; I blame Stephen Durfee. I always will. For EVERYTHING.)

Brands Used:
Canadian lobster from Wegman's in Hunt Valley, MD
Produce from Central Market House in York, PA
Biotta beet juice
All-Clad cookware
OXO Mandoline

Music to Cook By: Thomas Dolby; Retrospectacle: The Best of Thomas Dolby. I forgot how much I love this album; and, it really stands the test of time. This music is just as good as it was twenty years ago.