As part of a New Year’s eve feast, we went with lobster for our meal. Unfortunately, pre-cooked lobster = fail. The man didn’t have much time to go hunt down fresh live lobster and settled for the cheap $$ frozen lobster he found at Kroger. Unless you plan on using the lobster meat as some kind of garnish or topping or mix-in, I wouldn’t recommend eating store-cooked lobster straight from the shell. Yuck!

However, we did have an opportunity to make lobster broth from the 4-some of puny lobster shells. We tossed all the shells, heads and claws into a pot, covered them with enough water, and added crushed raw garlic, quartered onions, salt and peppercorns. Brought the mixture to a boil, then we let it simmer several hours (about 4-6). The result was a dingy gray liquid that “perfumed” the entire house for a few days. Seriously,  if you don’t want your house smelling like a seaside fish market, don’t make seafood broth indoors.

Alas, the gray water didn’t make for an attractive clear seafood broth. We weren’t as industrious as straining the liquid through cheesecloth as some internet sites suggested. For future reference, I recommend cleaning the lobster shells of any dirty matter that might color the broth. Unfortunately, that means reserving the lobster heads, where all the flavor comes from.

We froze leftover lobster broth for future experiments in lobster bisque making.