Exact Answer: Ten Minutes Plus Two Minutes For Every Quarter Pound
Lobsters make a great dish to savor with one’s friends and families. The bright red lobster meat accompanied by molten butter is a perfect fanciful dinner. It is an easy dish and can be prepared in very little time.
Lobsters are cooked better by steaming them which is a great way to ensure the flavor of the meat. Steaming lobsters is a great cooking technique that helps to produce more tender and soft meat. Steaming meat helps to ensure there are no chances of overcooking them while perfectly fitting into the time constraints.
How Long To Steam Lobster?
| Steps In The Cooking Process | Time Taken |
| Boiling Water | Five Minutes |
| Steaming lobsters | |
| A. One pound | Ten minutes |
| B. One and a quarter pound | Twelve minutes |
| C. One and a half-pound | Fourteen minutes |
| D. One and a three-fourths pound | Sixteen minutes |
| E. Two pound | Eighteen minutes |
| F. Two and a quarter pound | Twenty minutes |
| G. Two and a half-pound | Twenty-two minutes |
| H. Two and a three-fourths pound | Twenty four minutes |
| I. Three pound | Twenty-six minutes |
| Removing meat from the lobster | Ten minutes |
The process of cooking lobsters by steaming takes place in three stages. The first stage is boiling water, the next is steaming the lobsters in the boiled water and the third is to remove the cooked meat from the lobster.
To cook lobster, the first stage is to boil water. Meanwhile, the chef has to get the lobsters ready for steaming by making a sharp pointed knife cut on the lobster’s body. This stage takes barely five minutes.
The next and most important step is to steam those lobsters. The chef has to put them in boiling water and cover them with a tight lid so that steam does not escape. As can be inferred from the table above, the time required to cook lobsters is a minimum of ten minutes with an additional two minutes for every extra quarter of lobster.
The last step before serving the tender meat is to remove meat from the lobster. The meat of the lobster is underneath the shell of the sea animal. This step takes about ten minutes to carry out but is skipped by many chefs.
Why Does Steaming Lobster Take That Long?
How long it will take to steam lobster for its cooking depends on the weight of the animal and the process used to cook it. Steaming the alive lobster is considered an inhumane process but lobsters have no brain and a skeletal nervous system. So, as per experts, they do not feel much pain.
Steaming lobster has its unique benefit. This process of steaming helps to produce more juicy and softer meat. Moreover, as compared to the other methods of cooking lobster: like roasting, frying, and grilling, steaming is the fastest method to cook lobster.
The weight of the lobster is directly proportional to the time required to steam the lobster. The more will be its weight, the more time will be needed in cooking it. The lobsters need to be cooked till they become tender and succulent. It should be easily digestible and have no harmful microorganisms.
For every quarter-pound of lobster, an additional time of two minutes is needed apart from the minimum of ten minutes.
Moreover, a huge amount of time in lobster cooking is required during the removal of meat from the animal. Segregation of meat and the shells becomes a messy process due to too much water inside the lobster from its body and even boiling water.
Conclusion
Lobsters are a great meal to have prepared within half an hour. Five minutes is spent on boiling water, a minimum of ten minutes on a pound with two minutes extra for every extra quarter of lobster, and ten minutes on removing the cooked meat from the lobster. However, removal of meat from the lobster is a choice of the chef and it can be served well with coral butter.
The period required in this process is chiefly determined by two determinants. These are the method and techniques used in the cooking and the weight of lobsters. Less weight and better technique require less cooking time.
