Recipe: lobster with beernaise
Lobster is a dish you wouldn’t quickly make at home. For many people, especially killing and cleaning it, is too much of a hurdle. But once you’ve brought a lobster home, grilling lobster is very simple. And then: beernaise on the side.
Beernaise is a variation on the well-known béarnaise. We don’t make a gastrique (reduced vinegar with herbs), so it cannot be called béarnaise. It’s more like a quick hollandaise with fresh tarragon. You can make the sauce in fifteen minutes.
How to make beernaise
- Melt the butter in a saucepan. Bring a layer of water to the boil in a pan. Whisk the egg yolks with the malt vinegar and beer (white beer) in a heatproof bowl; add a pinch of salt and pepper. Place the bowl over the pan of boiling water, making sure the bowl does not touch the water. Whisk the egg yolks with a whisk until light and airy.
- Add the melted butter drop by drop while continuing to whisk like crazy. Once you see the sauce thickening, you can add the butter a little faster, but keep the mixture moving. Continue until all the butter has been incorporated; we usually add the egg-white flakes lying at the bottom of the pan as well.
- Remove the bowl with the sauce from the pan and continue whisking until the sauce has cooled slightly and is thick and glossy. Season the sauce with the tarragon and some salt and pepper. Add a little extra (white) beer if necessary to thin the sauce.
How to make lobster with beernaise
- Place the lobsters in the freezer for about 10 minutes; they will fall asleep and become sluggish. Insert the tip of a large sharp knife through the visible cross behind the head to kill the lobster. Cut the lobsters in half lengthwise with the knife. Detach the claws from the body. You can also have a fishmonger do this.
- Some people enjoy the innards in the head; that’s fine, but grilling is more difficult then. The innards stick to the grill or fall out. To prevent this, you can wrap the head in aluminum foil. Alternatively, rinse the innards out over a colander and discard them; that’s easiest. Remove the intestinal tract.
- Light the barbecue and heat it to 200 °C. Set it up for direct grilling with the cast-iron grill grate. Pat the lobsters thoroughly dry, brush the cut sides with olive oil and sprinkle with salt.
- Grill the claws for 3–4 minutes, then set them aside on a cooler part of the grill. Place the rest of the lobster cut-side down on the grill and grill for 4 minutes. Turn the lobsters shell-side down and grill until the internal temperature of the tail meat reaches 55 °C.
- Divide the halved lobsters and claws among 4 plates, spoon the beernaise into the cavities and garnish with the tarragon and freshly ground pepper.
Beer: IPA with Citra, Berliner Weisse, dubbel
Title: The Ultimate Beer and BBQ Book
Author: Jeroen Hazebroek & Harry Havinga
Price: €29,95
Publisher: Pig Butts Publishing
In ‘The Ultimate Beer and BBQ Book’, as a barbecue enthusiast you set out to find the ideal combinations with beer. Whether it’s the popular beer can chicken or brisket with coffee and dubbel beer. Authors Jeroen Hazebroek and Harry Havinga show you that beer isn’t just delicious to drink with barbecue, but that the two can also be combined wonderfully.
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