Garlic Butter Festival

The other night, The Boss and I had a Garlic Butter Festival. Most people call it Surf and Turf, but considering how much butter and garlic I melted, and how much we love our garlic butter (on Shrimp Scampi as well), I thought it might be appropriate to temporarily rename the dish.

It started out as something simple - I had purchased some unfavorable steaks from a national warehouse retailer and needed something to help out and prevent them from ruining a weekend meal. My initial thought was salmon. It's a fish that's easy to grill and pretty hard to screw up. But a few days previously I had watched a few some videos, including a couple that showed how easy it was to grill lobster tail.


I've never cooked lobster tail before, mostly because of the expense in relation to the size of the cut - seems like a lot of money for something that, at least locally, is usually available in sizes about the same as crawfish. This time, though, since I've been making an effort to expand my cooking abilities, I decided to purchase some bigger lobster tails I had seen and surprise the woman of the household with her favorite shellfish. So I bit the bullet on expense and laid out the extra cash.

Once home, which just that unique touch of trepidation that comes with stretching your comfort zone, I fired up the grill and followed the steps I had spent thirty minutes on YouTube researching.

The aluminum-wrapped corn on the cob went on the grill first for a few minutes, followed by the steaks, and just moments later, I gently placed the lobster tail on the hot metal with a small prayer to the cooking gods ("Please don't let me royally screw these up.")

I kept a careful eye on the timer while I minced the garlic and melted the butter (an entire stick of butter and three garlic gloves). I pulled everything off the heat exactly when I was supposed to, and in the end, we had a meal that was absolutely worth every penny and the small effort to make. maybe the lobster could have remained on another minute, maybe two, but the meal was absolutely wonderful and well worth the money and effort. Later, when I did the math, I calculated I had spent on the entire meal for two people what I would have spent on one meal at Joe's Crab Shack or Red Lobster. (Note: the lobster could have arguably stayed on for one more minute, seems The Boss's piece was still just a hair rubbery in one small part, but I'll need to further research if the cause is due to the length of time on the grill, or placement, etc.)

I don't see myself cooking lobster anytime in the immediate future, but I'm definitely over any confidence issues I had, and assuredly will be making lobster again (and again).

Until Next Time...
Here's a video from Lighthouse Seafood and Deli on the simplicity of grilling lobster tail.
Butterly Yours,
Michael