The Maine Lobster Roll

As tradition built it

The Maine Lobster Roll

Serves 4 . No cooking, chill and assemble in about 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 4 oz per roll (1 lb for 4 rolls) cold-picked lobster meat
• 1/4 cup, for 1 lb lobster meat mayonnaise
• 1/2, juiced lemon
• 1 to 2 ribs, finely diced celery, finely diced, optional
• 4 split-top hot dog bun

Method

1. Dress the cold-picked lobster meat simply, with mayonnaise, a squeeze of lemon and, sometimes, finely diced celery.
2. Pack it into a split-top hot dog bun.

Notes

The format is most consistently traced to Perry's restaurant, Milford, Connecticut, in the 1920s, though that hot-buttered Connecticut style is now the minority version; the cold, mayonnaise-dressed Maine style became the dominant national form by the mid-twentieth century, an asymmetry, older origin, less-famous version, worth knowing rather than papering over.

What a modern chef changes

The lobster's own roe and tomalley folded back into its dressing

Method

1. Poach the lobster meat sous vide at a precise, low temperature that never approaches the toughening point a rolling boil risks, then chill it rapidly rather than letting it sit in its own residual heat.
2. Make the dressing's mayonnaise from scratch in the high-power blender using the reserved lobster roe and tomalley where available, folding the crustacean's own richness back into its dressing rather than relying on shop mayonnaise alone.
3. Toast the split-top bun directly on the Big Green Egg's plancha side rather than in a pan, for an even, slightly smoked crust the diner tastes before the lobster itself arrives.