When it comes to food portioning and prep, we are lazy efficient with our time. One great protein to sous vide is lobster, but nearly every online recipe says you have to par boil or shell the meat prior to immersion cooking. So what’s the deal, and what is the solution?
We have these wonderfully large lobster tails from our favorite local warehouse. These will be a feast after 30ish minutes at 139F.
The reason: the shells are too sharp, and they will puncture the bag. Yes, and they will; learned that one the hard way. Find a sturdy pair of kitchen shears, and follow along.
Life hack: simply cut the spines off the tails, and the problem is solved. This is about a 90 second process for five tails.
Start at the fleshy end, and simply trim off as much as practical. You will find the natural line when you have one of these in hand.
Secondary tips: stack the tails bottom to bottom, and watch the vacuum cycle. You want to evacuate the air to prevent frost in the freezer, while also allowing full contact in the immersion bath.
The other three tails, which will cooked in two days. The vacuum cycle on this pack was stopped a bit early, but this is still acceptable to me for freezer storage. A little air isn’t a big issue.
That little bit of air, if it exists, can simply be mitigated by finding any number of kitchen objects to help submersion. Here is a shelf from our air fryer, and meat tenderizer as a weight. We prefer a more cooked meat, and have found that 139F-140F range to be the sweet spot for our liking. Cook time from freezer: at least 45 min. From fridge/room temp: about 25 min.
Our preference is to pull the flesh from the tail, and char over butter in cast iron.
Or you can simply cut the shell open and serve as is. They are fully cooked either way. Serve with drawn butter and lemon, or any dipping sauce of your choice. Enjoy!