Mesoamerica · Volume 04, Cattle, Wheat and the Border World
Langosta estilo Puerto Nuevo
Puerto Nuevo, Baja California, Mexico
Illustration
- Time
- 30 minutes
- Researched
- Researched from 64 sources in the brief
As tradition built it
Langosta estilo Puerto Nuevo
Serves 2. About 30 minutes.
Ingredients
The lobster
- 2 lobsters, cleaned and halved
- ½ tbsp black pepper, ground
- ½ tbsp salt
- for frying lard
The butter
- 240ml butter, melted
- 3 tbsp soy sauce (Maggi)
To serve
- 480ml red rice, cooked
- 480ml bayo beans, whole, cooked
- 10 flour tortillas, hot
- 5 limes, quartered
Method
- Season the lobster halves with the pepper and salt.
- Heat the lard and fry the lobsters meat side down for 3 to 5 minutes. Drain them on paper.
- Mix the melted butter with the soy sauce and pour it over the lobsters.
- Serve with rice, beans, hot flour tortillas and limes.
Notes
The lobster and abalone fishery behind this dish runs under a genuine sixty-year cooperative management structure, FEDECOOP, founded 1940, a real conservation story, though current climate pressure is reducing abalone yields specifically.
The recipe is Recetas Nestlé México's. Susana Plasencia, whose parents began cooking lobster at Puerto Nuevo in 1954, told El Informador it was halved, seasoned only with salt and pepper and fried in lard, or boiled in water, and served with rice, beans, flour tortillas and a molcajete salsa of árbol and pico de pájaro chiles.
What a modern chef changes
Clarified butter, seawater-strength brine, a sourcing condition
Method
- Split the lobster and finish it over direct Big Green Egg heat with clarified butter, passed through a chinois for a cleaner finish and a higher smoke point than whole butter allows, closer to the traditional method's spirit than a domestic grill can manage.
- Where whole seawater-boiling is impractical at home, replicate its seasoning logic by making a strongly salted court-bouillon at seawater strength rather than a standard, milder stock.
- Buy only from a supplier who can speak to the FEDECOOP cooperative system or an equivalent sustainably managed source, since the dish's honest continuation depends on the fishery it comes from remaining healthy.