Overcooked lobster is still pretty good, but my guess is that most people have never had perfectly cooked lobster. The usual suspects call for about 15 minutes in boiling water for a 1- or 2-pound lobster. Ridiculous! I just cooked an 8-pound lobster for 18 minutes, and it was perfect. The meat was moist and tender, without any of the graininess or toughness that is all too common in typically cooked lobster. The nice thing about not overcooking it is that the lobster tastes great on its own. You really don’t need melted butter or mayonnaise.
The problem is figuring out how long to cook the small ones. For big lobsters, it’s easy. Ten minutes for the first pound and 1 minute for each additional pound. I added 1 minute to the 8 pounder’s cooking time because it was a hard-shell beast, with very thick claw shell, and I thought that it might need a bit extra. For small lobsters, I would decrease the initial time to 8 minutes. So, those typical 1- to 1ΒΌ-pound lobsters would get a startlingly brief 8 or 9 minutes. Seems like they would be raw, but they come out perfectly! Try it — you’ll be convinced.
I discovered a great secret to cooking lobster…under cook it by about 1/4 because it keeps cooking while in the shell.
By a quarter of what? My formula? The Joy of Cooking?