Lobster Rolls & Asari no Sakamushi
Yelp had a $40 for $80 worth of seafood from New England Lobster so my friends and I bought two gift certificates and had a seafood night. Cooking for a large party on a weeknight (13 people!) took awhile but when we finally sat down to eat, it was quite delish and worth the wait.
With many helping hands, we made lobster rolls, asari no sakamushi (clams steamed in sake), steak, corn on the cob, and finished off the meal with almond hazelnut truffles and kheer from Tab’s mom (we had some of the aloo gobi she made with the meal too – both uber yummy!). I’ll be posting steak and truffle recipes later.
For the lobster rolls, I used Adam Roberts from Amateur Gourmet’s recipe for lobster rolls, but we followed the directions that came with the lobsters for the boiling time instead, skipped the ice bath part, and used my favorite thick toast from Paris Baguette as the bread instead of using hot dog buns.
To make the clams, I followed this recipe from Chef Nobua Fukada, and just doubled it. I used Littleneck clams, which worked out great. As you are preparing the clams in the first step – soaking them in cold salt water, the live clams should close up – any clams that remain open or have damaged shells, toss them before cooking. One other change I made to the recipe was to use some of the water from boiling the lobsters instead of regular water and since I couldn’t find cooking sake at the market I went to, I used a bottle of regular “nice” sake. After you have finished steaming the clams, if there are any that stayed closed, throw those out before serving.
I actually saw that lobster roll recipe as well, but saw the price of lobsters at the store…so ended up just going to Mendocino Farms ;p Maybe if we have a nice seafood coupon down here as well…or maybe just hit up the Uni and Seafood Festival in Santa Barbara later this year…
How did you not find Cooking Sake? Mitsuwa’s pretty close by right? Heck, I’d have thought that you have Cooking Sake in your pantry ;p
Oh what an awesome deal! The lobster looks so good and I LOOVE the photo of the clams–perfect!
Jonathan–You will definitely have to come to Santa Barbara’s seafood festival–yummy uni rolls right on the harbor! I think it takes place in September or sometime around then.
I so wish we all lived closer to one another! would love to cook and eat with you more often
I’ve been using some really cheap soju whenever my recipes have been calling for sake or mirin–I know it’s not the same, but it’s cheap alcohol and it seems to taste fine in the end
Check out local Chinese or Vietnamese supermarkets for cheaper deals! My mom’s always talking about how she gets lobster for $6.99 a pound or even less sometimes at ABC super market or Ranch 99 in OC. And yeah… regarding cooking sake… I DO normally have it – but I had run out and didn’t have time to stop by Mitsuwa. Went to the local Korean market nearby and couldn’t read Korean so decided to buy the clearly labeled Japanese sake in their alcohol aisle.
I would like to pretend that purchasing that bottle of sake made with organic rice made the dish that much better. 
@ Erica: Thanks! I was debating whether or not to use soju as well – though mirin I think is different enough that I normally wouldn’t substitute it in a recipe (some recipes even call for using both sometimes!) but then again I use mirin way more often so I definitely always have some of that on hand and it’s usually not too expensive either. ^_^ and UNI ROLLS????
Sigh…September is generally a bad time for me but might have to make an exception for this. 