Kyl Haselbauer has 20 years of experience working in fine-dining and modernist kitchens, including Bar Cotto and Anchovies &amp; Olives in Seattle. He is also the owner of Bright Spot, a café and coffee shop in Seattle.

Kyl Haselbauer

Steamed lobster is a New England summer classic that more often than not turns out rubbery and tough. But there’s a much better way to cook lobster and all that’s required is precision temperature control.In a lot of fine dining restaurants, instead of getting dunked whole into a steamer or pot, lobster is carefully taken apart and its disparate pieces are par-blanched and shocked in ice water to cleanly release the meat from the shell. The meat is then gently cooked the rest of the way—not boiled, not steamed, but poached. Not in water, not even in a fancy court bouillon, like the one we use in our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/coctel-de-camaron-mexican-style-shrimp-cocktail">cóctel de camarón</a>. It’s poached in beurre monté—emulsified liquid butter.The beauty of beurre monté is that it only stays emulsified and liquid within a narrow temperature range, which happens to be a great temperature range for poaching delicate proteins. That’s also its primary drawback. Making it can be a little fussy, and keeping traditional monté at the right temperature is fussier still.We use our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/bulletproof-beurre-monte">Bulletproof Beurre Monté</a>, which is stabilized with xanthan gum and can be heated to much higher temperatures without breaking, which means all you have to worry about is getting it to the exact temperature you want your lobster to cook at: [f 145] for the most tender and succulent lobster meat; [f 155] for firm, juicy flesh that’s closer to (but way, way better than) the stuff that comes out of a boiled or steamed lobster.As a bonus, you can nappe the precision butter-poached lobster in reduced beurre monté for a silky sauce! That’s lobster done right.

Precision Butter-Poached Lobster