After extensive research and a couple of days of planning we pulled off our first Lobster Bake.

The Ingredients:

8 two pound lobsters
40 little neck clams
4 ears of corn
6 red potatoes
4 links of italian sausage
1 bag of rockweed seaweed
A bunch of kosher salt

The Plan:

We planned to steam everything together except for the lobsters. I don’t have a pot big enough to do 8 lobsters and all the other stuff so we decided to boil the lobsters four at a time in their own pot. Since we were doing all this outside we just fired up the grills and put the a pot on each grill until the heat was right.

First we put water into both pots with a good amount of kosher salt.  Then we started the steam pot first, using a steamer rack, I set the the majority of seaweed down first, then the potatoes and corn. On top of the corn I put the rest of the seaweed and then I put the sausage on top. Finally we added the little neck clams which we put in cheese cloth to keep them together. This did leave room to probably do four lobsters but not the whole eight. I let the steaming go for about 30 minutes and then I began the boiling on with the other pot. Once I got the second pot to a boil I put in 4 lobster and when they were done I moved them over to the steam pot while I finished the other 4 lobster in the boil. This way everything was hot and done completely at the same time.

Side Notes:

* The full set of pictures are on Flickr here.
** The rockweed is key, regular seaweed won’t really cut it. Rockweed has small pockets of air throughout the leaves that burst and produce steam as it heats. This is what really brings the smell/taste/vide of the sea to the lobster boil.
*** When I do this next year I’d like to either get a bigger pot or split the whole process equally into two pots. That way I could steam all of the lobster with the rest of the food.
**** We got all of our seafood from Dirk’s Fish and Gourmet Shop here in Chicago.  We were able to place an order for everything we wanted on Monday and it was all ready to go and fresh Saturday morning.  Dirk’s was on point enough to give me a call first thing in the morning to let me know that the Great Neck Clams I ordered weren’t good but they could substitute them for Little Neck Clams which were farm raised.  This was a plus in my book as I didn’t have to worry about cleaning the clams and getting all the sand out.
*** The aftermath: