Lobster Stock
- Total Time
- 50 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
Advertisement
Ingredients
- ½pound butter (leftover melted butter plus fresh)
- 2tablespoons chopped shallots
- Leftovers from four lobsters (claws, innards, legs, carcasses, shells - everything)
- ¼cup Cognac
- ½cup dry white wine
- 4tablespoons tomato paste
- 1tablespoon (or as desired) dried tarragon, crushed
- Pinch of thyme
- White pepper as desired
- Water (or chicken stock) as needed
- Salt as desired (the stock should be undersalted when finished)
Preparation
- Step 1
Melt the butter in a deep, heavy pot and cook the shallots and garlic over low heat until transparent but not browned.
- Step 2
Add all the lobster scraps to the pot and crush them down well with a potato masher. Raise the heat, add the Cognac and flame it.
- Step 3
Add wine, tomato paste, tarragon, thyme and white pepper and mix well.
- Step 4
Add water to barely cover, plus ½ teaspoon salt, mix well, boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes.
- Step 5
Strain broth and discard scraps. Cool broth quickly, uncovered, and refrigerate. When completely cold, remove the cake of recongealed lobster butter from the top and wrap and reserve it in the freezer for future use. Freeze the broth in small containers.
Private Notes
Leave a Private Note on this recipe and see it here.
Cooking Notes
Andy
Note that the garlic mentioned in Step 1 is absent from the ingredients list.
doggerelblogger
To smash the lobster shells down enough to truly be able to flambé them requires significant effort that I just didn’t feel like giving. So I bashed them up a bit, threw the cognac in, attempted to flame them, and then carried on. This is truly an excellent recipe and our new go-to. I salted to taste (not much).
Danielle
There is no garlic in the list of ingredients.
Blaze
I modified the recipe to use ingredients that I had in the house. I’m on the West Coast so I used crab shells and having just run out of my white cooking wine, I used dry vermouth. I skipped the cognac because I didn’t have it, and would likely set the kitchen on fire if I attempted this trick. To enhance the fishy umami flavor, I added a small handful of dulse seaweed. As with most stocks, there’s room for flexibility. The end result is delicious with enough for the freezer.
Devon
I find it needs a bit more salt, but this is a wonderful stock recipe. I use it to make lobster risotto. With shells from to lobsters, I was able to have 4 cups for my risotto and 4 cups for the freezer. I smash 1 clove of garlic and use that where the recipe calls for garlic. One of my lobsters was female so I also added the roe to the stock.
JCB
This recipe correctly limits the simmering of the lobster shells to 30 minutes. You can simmer the rest longer but if you keep the shells in the pot and under heat for much more than 30 minutes you risk making a very bitter stock.
Andy
Note that the garlic mentioned in Step 1 is absent from the ingredients list.
Private notes are only visible to you.
Advertisement
