Easy and Delicious Grilled Lobster Tails | Julia At Home (S4 E5)

Now it's time for the main event, the lobster tails which I have resting in the fridge. I love lobster tails. Now these are gorgeous. These are about six or seven ounces each. All right so these were frozen but I let them thaw. I'm going to set them aside while we work on the flavorings for the lobster which starts with garlic and butter. Over here I have some butter. Melt in my favorite little butter melting pot. Six tablespoons of unsalted butter. To this I'm going to add some garlic. Three cloves of garlic. I'm going to make garlic butter. And for this garlic I like to mince it by hand because I like seeing the distinct pieces of garlic in the butter. I'm being a little fussy about this but it is lobster tails after all. So three cloves of garlic. In culinary school skills one class which is one of the first cooking classes you have to take. One of the tasks was mincing garlic and you had to put it in this little Dixie cup and bring it up to the chef at their station and they would pick through it with a toothpick to look at any of the pieces that were unevenly sized. I mean it's kind of ridiculous but stuck with me. All right that is the size I'm looking for. All right so all that garlic is going to go right into this pot of melted butter and that is garlic butter. Stir this together. Some of this is going to go into the topping for the lobsters. Some of it's going to go right on the lobsters while they're at the grill. All right garlic butter is done. Now time for the topping that's going to go onto the lobsters part way through grilling. Here I have some panko. Toasted panko about half a cup. Set this aside. We're going to flavor that panko with some fresh parsley. About three tablespoons of minced fresh parsley. And here I have curly leaf parsley which tell you the truth isn't my favorite. I like the stronger flavor of the flat leaf Italian parsley. But the thing I like about curly leaf parsley is it's sturdy and it lasts 10 times longer than the flat leaf parsley. So give curly parsley a try. All right just going to chop it up. Obviously I've washed it and I just took off the stems. All right that looks pretty good. Into the panko the parsley goes. There we go. All right going to add a little bit of salt and pepper. Again just doing it by eye. That looks good. Doesn't mean to be really salty or really peppery. A little goes a long way here. There we go. Now for some of that garlic butter. You want about three tablespoons of the garlic butter to go right into the panko. One. A lot of those garlic solids they fall to the bottom of the pot and that's okay. They're going to wind up on the lobster at the very end. So don't worry about that. Time for the lobsters. All right so these beauties as I mentioned they're about six to seven ounces each. You want to cut them in half that way the meat can get right onto the grill grates and get some good flavor. Now I used to use a sharp knife until my husband says why didn't you use a pair of poultry shears and he actually knows a lot about fish. He sold fish down on the fish pier in Boston for many years and of course he was right. So here I'm going to take the lobster upside down using a nice sharp pair of poultry shears. You want to cut right down the lobster tail exposing that lobster meat. Oh yeah you see that? Gorgeous. Sometimes there's a little gunk in there that you can clean out but the lobster tails I've been getting recently have been very clean. So I'm going to put them on a baking sheet. You notice I line that baking sheet with foil. That's just because I'm going to take the foil off part way through and I'll have a nice clean baking sheet to work with out at the grill. These look good. All right now it's time to clean up, grind a little salt and pepper onto those lobster tails and fire up the grill. All right that grill has been heating up for about 10 minutes or so. I have both of these burners on high. That just burns off any food leftover from the last time I grilled and now's the perfect time to clean the grill grates. So using a nice sturdy wire brush I'm just going to scrape any cooked on bits. That looks pretty good and now the most important part I'm going to oil the grill grates. Now this is a little veg oil, a nice long pair of tongs, a lot of paper towels. I'm going to dip the paper towels in the veg oil, run them over the grill grates and this grill is so hot that the oil is going to polymerize right on the grill grates. It really helps to keep them nice and seasoned. Now because we're grilling something delicate, these lobster tails, I'm going to repeatedly rub the oil on the grill grates more than I would if I was doing chicken or steak. I might do it eight, ten times. Really build up that oil so that it's a bit more non-stick. It just helps the lobster not stick so much. All right it looks pretty good. You can see how nice and glossy it is. All right on go the lobster tails. Now I'm going to put them cut side down just for the first few minutes and then we'll add the butter and the panko topping. Now this grill is kind of a monster in terms of BTUs. If you had a grill that wasn't as powerful, you'd probably want to put the lid down to trap the heat to help that lobster cook through. All right they've been on the grill for just a few minutes. Now they're not cooked through it but you can see it just has a little bit of browning and that's perfect. You just want a little bit of that flavor right on the meat. All right now it's time to give these guys a little bit of flavor. So here I have that garlic buttered. Some of it went into the topping. The rest is going to go right on the lobster on the grill. Pour a little bit over each. Now the garlic all stays in the bottom of the pot I found so we'll go back at the end and make sure everyone gets in a little garlic. I know right doesn't this look amazing? So easy and these lobster tails they're just so easy to find. I mean you can find these even if you don't live on the east coast or next to water and the grill just really takes it up a notch. That's good. Now for the toasted panko. I'm going to use a spoon. I'm going to sort of pack it on there with my fingers. So a little bit of it falls off but it's okay. So you just pack it on there. Of course that garlic butter that I just poured over the lobster tail also helps it stick. Now you can see I'm being pretty delicate with these guys. I just want to make sure the crumbs as many of them stay on the lobsters as possible. So from here on out I'm going to treat them pretty gently. All right looks great. Back on the grill they go. Obviously bread crumb side up this time. We're going to cook them for about another five minutes or so until they start to bubble around the outside and the whole neighborhood will know it's dinner time. Now sometimes when I'm grilling and I've found this on many different grills the pieces in the front see a little less heat than the pieces in the back. So for something this quick cooking I like to shingle everyone down a little bit after they've been on the grill. Give the front guys a little time at the back. It's been on the grill for five minutes and you can see it's really starting to bubble around the edges of all the lobsters. That's a good indication that the lobsters are cooked through. Now you can temp these. They should register 140 degrees but I found it's really difficult to temp half of a lobster tail especially when it has that topping on the top. You know it kind of disrupts it so I think it's better just to look for the bubbling. All right time to head inside. All right the lobsters are off the grill and looking spectacular. It's so easy to make these look so impressive. I'm just gonna put them on a nice big platter with some lemon wedges. This one might not make it to the table. All right now for a taste. You know they're frozen lobster tails but the grill and that garlic butter just give them so much flavor. So simple but so good. See you next time. Thanks for watching. What'd you think? Leave a comment below and let me know what you're excited to cook this week. And while you're at it hit that subscribe button. You can get today's recipes and more for free at our website americastestkitchen.com slash juliettehome.