Christmas Lobster Roll

Merry Christmas everyone! After a morning of opening up presents and a breakfast ham, egg, and cheese casserole, we had a late afternoon lobster roll snack. We had our traditional Christmas eve dinner with steamed live Maine lobsters, crab cakes and clam chowder last night. We ended up with 9 1.5 lb lobsters, which was way too much for five people. We took the meat from three lobsters and the tail from a fourth lobster for lobster rolls today. I made the lobster salad filling following a Pearl Oyster Bar recipe via Chowhound last night and chilled it overnight last night to let the flavors combine, and assembled the rolls with buttered toasted new England style hot dog buns today. They were delicious; generous heaps of fresh sweet lobster, with a little tanginess from the lemon juice and mayo and some freshness and texture from the celery, lettuce and chives, nestled in a buttery warm toasted bun. I have to imagine its hard to go wrong when you start with live Maine lobsters; most places make lobster rolls with reject leftover lobsters.

Pearl Oyster Bar Lobster Rolls Recipe (makes 6 small lobster rolls)

• Steam four 1.5 - 1.75 lb live lobsters for 15 minutes, let cool and remove the meat from the lobsters (thanks Scott!). Dice the meat into 1/2 inch chunks. Mine were a little bigger, which I recommend, to get more chunky lobster flavor
• Combine in a metal bowl: 1/4-1/3 cup of light mayo, 1 stem of celery fine diced, 1.25 TB of lemon juice (juice from 1/2 a lemon), 1/4 tsp of salt, freshly ground pepper, and a pinch of dry mustard powder and onion powder (these were my additions). Mix together thoroughly and stir in the lobster meat and chill for at least an hour (overnight for us)
• Melt some butter in a large pan and toast until golden brown inside and out 6 hot dog rolls (new england style is the best, with toasty surface area on both sides)
• Tear a few leaves of lettuce and chop up a bunch of chives. Mix half of the chives with the lobster salad filling. Assemble with 1-2 two lettuce leaves in a toasted bun, a heaping mound of lobster salad filling and sprinkle the top with more chives and eat immediately