I was recently asked for my recipe for Lobster Stew so here it is … but, since the recipe is so short, I am throwing in a couple family stories to make it interesting.
Let’s start with "why" we have lobster stew for Christmas dinner. IT all goes back to an unfortunate incident from my days in high school. Our hose was burglarized not once but twice (by the same guy) and one of the casualties was our small set of family silver ware. Between what the thief missed and what the police recovered, we were left with soup spoons, salad forks and one butter knife.
When it came time for planning the holiday dinner that year, my mother asked what I wanted to serve. I replied, "whatever we have, I want to use the family silver." Well, my mother, being creative, decided we could still have the traditional Waldorf Salad and we could have biscuits. The main course would be Lobster Stew. That was over twenty years ago and we still have the same holiday meal and we still use the family silver.
The recipe is also a family story. Many yeas ago, I took over cooking the holiday meals – from Thanksgiving thru Easter. Lobster Stew is not a difficult recipe. The challenge is that the recipe dates back to when you always got fresh whole lobsters and all the big and little bits you scavenged from the legs, claws, and carcass. I had settled on buying lobster meat from the local fish market because the holidays tended to get a bit crazy. I was getting rave reviews from my stew so I was reticent to let on to my secret. I was adding a pound of crabmeat. It added some flavor but mostly it added body and texture to the stew.
I thought I was so cleaver for adding the crab meat. It was many years later, when my grandmother passed and I claimed her prized cookbook with all of her notes and adjustments and iterations she had made to Marjorie’s recipes.
I opened up the cookbook to tuck my little secret recipe inside and found all of my grandmother’s notes for Lobster Stew. She had notes on different sized services, and bowls, and everything. And there, in her handwriting, right next to the original recipe was her little secret "CRABMEAT" !
In the photo, the post-it note shows my recipe stock in the upper right corner next to the original recipe in Marjorie Standish’s cookbook (the first edition that my grandmother had and was signed by her friend, the author) and all of my grandmother’s notes.
So, two generates apart. Two kitchens apart. The same secret
Well, since the secret is now out and it turns out it was not my secret to begin with, here is the recipe for Lobster Stew …
Ingredients:
- 1-3/4 lb lobster meat broken into small chucks and bits
- 1 lb crabmeat
- 1 lb butter (I use unsalted and control the salt as needed)
- 2 tbsp of "coral" (the cooked eggs of a female lobster)
- 2 cups light cream (you can use all whole milk if you prefer)
- 6 cups whole milk
Cooking:
- Melt the butter in a large pot (large enough to take all the ingredients)
- Mash the coral into the butter. Leave on low heat for 15 minutes. The goal here is to turn the butter pink and red. Turn off the heat.
- Add the lobster and the crabmeat. Stir and let stand for an hour. If you are making a lot of stew, you can freeze at this stage before adding the milk.
- Return the pot to low heat and add the milk and light cream. Simmer for 30 minutes but do not let it boil. Taste and season with kosher salt. Ground pepper is not recommended but that’s up to you. Remove from heat and move the pot to the refrigerator.
- Lobster Stew really needs to sit over night and can remain in the refrigerator for up to 3 days as long as you don’t double dip.
- An hour before service, reheat the stew, again simmer and do not let it boil.
Serve with fresh biscuits.