Stop Shopping For Lobsters Immediately If Your Fishmonger Can't Do This

As expensive as it is to source, and as tricky as it can be to make at home, you want to be on high alert for red flags when buying lobster. The luxe crustacean that sure didn't start out that way can approach around $20 a pound even in everyday supermarket tanks, and it's one of the few foods that most folks will have to actually kill to cook in their own kitchen, so the stakes are just a little higher than with something like boneless, skinless chicken breasts. So we caught Travis Sowards, executive chef at Temple Court in downtown New York City, for his tips on how to trap a good one. And it starts with reeling in a great seafood dealer.

"They should be able to tell you where the lobster is being sourced from and whether it is in the soft-shell or hard-shell stage," Sowards tells Chowhound exclusively. The former stage, as you might imagine, is typically easier to handle, but the latter will yield more meat, and you'll want to do business with someone who can knowledgeably detail what to expect in either case. If they can't, well, you might want to shop for the shellfish elsewhere. The lobster itself, of course, also has some obvious quality tells. "The lobster should be moving around, especially when handled," Sowards says. "There should be essentially no aroma as well."

Cooking lobster isn't exactly hard in the way that making something like a pâté en croûte is hard, but it does come with its own challenges. When you're preparing it the familiar, cinematic way, you'll need an oversized pot and someone with the upper body strength to haul it around the kitchen when full. You'll also need the wherewithal to safely add the lobster to said vat of boiling water while it's still alive. (Some prefer to stab the invertebrate behind the eyes to kill it, instead, and the aforementioned soft-shell variety will make this a little physically easier.)

Once it's dispatched, the whole lobster will only take around five minutes, depending on its size, to cook to a nice, tender finish. You can also bisect a lobster lengthwise and toss it on the grill or impress dinner party guests by poaching it in a decadent butter bath. Your trusty neighborhood fishmonger should be able to share some lobster cooking tips, too, Travis Sowards says. You can also simply choose to do the least. "Some seafood markets will cook your lobster for you," he says. It's the next best thing to the seafood restaurant.