I was spending the weekend in Ottawa, bracing for an ice storm, ready to celebrate my mother-in-law’s birthday.
Q: Barbara, if I made you a breakfast sandwich for your birthday, what would you want?
A: Lobster roll.
This is why Barbara rocks.
Lobster roll it is. I’ve made it before but I worked with pre-cooked, not fabulous lobster and whatever buns. Challenge on: how to make the very best lobster roll for Barbara’s birthday brunch?
I start with a trip to Whole Foods in search of four lobster tails (frozen) and find a stack of luxe brioche buns right next to the freezer aisle—they know what they’re doing. Here’s my set up.
OK, top shelf buns at the ready. Check.
Fresh chives for colour and flavour, chopped (about 1/4 cup). Check.
Every sandwich requires multiple decisions along the way. The most important decision for the lobster roll is how to treat the lobster? Barbara grew up in the Maritimes and Craig (her son & my love) typically handle the lobster, but I want to be a bit hands-on. Upon consultation, we decide upon steaming the lobster tails mid-way, then give the meat a bath in butter to finish it off, careful to not make it rubbery.
It was definitely a group effort.
It’s her birthday but Barbara’s keen to break open the partially steamed lobster, after cracking some cooked lobster claws that she already had in the fridge. She’s a pro, but partially cooked lobster is a beast to pull out of the shell. She won the battle, but it’s a totally different ball game than fully cooking a lobster tail, so pick your battles accordingly and choose your mother-in-law well.
Lobster goes into the butter (about 1/4 cup) to finish the cooking process.
Chopped steamed, butter-poached lobster—dressed in chives and, once cooled, about 1/2 cup Hellman’s mayo, salt and pepper—at the ready.
Everyone chooses mimosas with fresh orange juice, so we are now ready to eat and we all appreciate that a lobster roll is a very special treat, usually eaten seaside but in this case, in the middle of an ice storm. So here we go.
Simple. Decadent. The food of kings and queens. Should we be so lucky, and we were.
Trish Hennessy
A Year in Sandwiches 