Sous vide lobster, Christmas eve practice run

Found these 4oz tails and decided they would be a nice addition to Cristmas dinner.


There are few recipes online with significant temperature deviations so I decided to test a couple to find one that suited my needs. All tails were blanched in salted boiling water for 1 minute.


Then they were shocked in salted ice water to stop the cooking process.


This aided extracting the meat.


I sprinkled each tail with a bit of salt and placed two tails and two tablespoon of butter in the bag.


All tails were cooked for 15 minutes at their respective temperature. I started with the lowest temperature first 46.5*C (115.7*F).

The result was desperately undercooked and less than desirable. I quickly fired up the grill to finish the cooking.

The next temp I tried was 52*C (125.6*F). The result this time was a nicely cooked tail that was a little too soft. Again, they found their way on to the grill, a theme that would be repeated with the remaining tails. The final tail duo was cooked at 56.5*C (133.7*F). This yielded the best texture and is how I will cook tails moving forward.

The combination of butter poaching, a la sous vide, and grilling was a successful way to turn once-frozen lobster tails into something palatable. Be sure to save the bag juices and butter for basting during grilling and for dipping while you eat.

Cheers!