Lobster Salad Lunch

My new favorite thing is going to the Union Square farmers market on Saturday mornings.  I pick up fruits, veggies, Ronnybrook skim milk in their adorable glass bottle (though I wish they were dark glass bottles to prevent the loss of the light-sensitive B-vitamins), various multigrain seeded breads, and fish and shellfish from the friendly folks at the PE & DD fish stand.

Their fish/shellfish is so FRESH and you better get there early if you want some.  The past couple of times I've gone, the bluefish is gone by 8am.  A few others sell out by 9am and most all of the stuff is gone by 3pm or so.

I have been picking up one freshly cooked lobster (chilled) and a pound of cod or flounder.  Next time I will not pass up on the tuna steaks-- they looked absolutely amazing last week.

The lobsters are about a pound and a half and PE & DD charge $9.95/lb.  I do not own lobster crackers (they're on my list to pick up sometime soon), so I've been enjoying watching my boyfriend go at it with a hammer in our kitchen.  We keep the lobster wrapped in a plastic bag and use folded up paper towels as a buffer in between the hammer slams and the lobster.  It's worked very well so far :)

I grew up in Massachusetts and spend every summer vacation in Maine, so I am very familiar with good lobster.  This is some of the best lobster I've ever had.  They cook it perfectly.  Normally I'm the type who loves warm lobster with dripping hot butter smothered over it.  These chilled lobsters over a salad is my new favorite dish- the lobster is soooo tasty without anything on it.  I don't even use dressing on the salad, just a touch of lemon squeezed over it.

The tail is easy to get out, no use of the hammer here.  Simply twist and tear it away from the rest of the body.  Use a sharp knife and cut a line down the center of the underside.

Pull the sides apart like so...

And pop the meat out from the shell.

 Viola!

I simply cut up the meat and put it atop all my fresh veggies from the market: organic fresh greens, organic snap peas, organic tomatoes, avocado (bought at Whole Foods for $2.50), organic pear (bought at Trader Joe's for .49 cents), radishes, and organic bean sprouts.