How One of the World’s Best Chefs Makes a Perfect Lobster Roll (Michelin Star) | Bon Appétit

Bon Appétit joins world-renowned Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten at his NYC seafood restaurant, The Fulton, to share his take on the perfect lobster roll recipe. Using only the freshest lobsters and homemade mayonnaise, Chef Jean-Georges shares his secret to building a gourmet lobster roll that’s bursting with flavor.

00:00 Intro
00:32 Cooking the lobster
01:50 Making mayonnaise
03:18 Cracking the lobster
05:14 Mixing lobster salad
06:19 Cooking gaufrettes potatoes
07:49 Toasting the bun
08:26 Building the rolls

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[upbeat music] – I’m Chef Jean-Georges, the chef at The Fulton New York City, and today I’m doing my
favorite lobster roll. [bell rings] The Fulton is our first
seafood restaurant. We opened about five years ago and it’s all based on East Coast seafood. Today we are making a
lobster roll luxury sandwich. This one changes during the seasons. The tomato makes it pop, homemade mayonnaise, different spices, everything has to be spicy
for me in the summertime, and then a couple of chips next to it. But first, let’s cook the lobster. [water bubbling] So this lobster is
about a pound and a half and you get two lobster roll out of this. This is a female. They have
smaller claw, larger tail. I like the tail meat
better than the claw meat. Lobster has to be really moving a lot. When you hold its sides, many times you can see on
the claw all the membranes. When you have a dead lobster, the meat usually gets very mushy and soft. You can buy lobster meat if you like, but it’s probably been on ice or in a fridge for a long time. You can see how shiny it is. The antenna, it’s not
been in a tank for sure. It’s been a live lobster from the wild. So the best way to cook a lobster is really to either steam it. The steaming, sometime
they empty themself. When you boil it, it seals the meat, really cooks perfectly,
stays perfectly moist. Are we ready? Are you ready? Heads on. There we go. Fast boil, you can see it’s already red and it’s gonna cook for
about eight to 10 minutes. There we are, it’s a beautiful
lobster, nice and steamy. Never saw the fridge and never will. To see if a lobster is cooked, it will be to crack open the tail, but then if you put it back in the water, you wash the flavors away, so. In the summer, the shell
is a little more tenders. Trust me, I mean, it’s a good time. We’re gonna let it cool in the shell, so it’s gonna continue to
cook all the way through. In the meantime, I’m gonna show you how to make my spicy mayonnaise. [upbeat music continues] There’s so many types of lobster roll, but I like the mayonnaise one. You don’t have to do your own mayonnaise, but it’s so easy to do. So it’s a two egg yolk, a
little bit of a mustard, i start with a pinch of salt and then some grapeseed
oil or sunflower oil, something neutral. So it’s like an emulsion. Emulsion is when you really mix something solid and something liquid. You can do this in a blender
but by hand is easy as well. Even lemon juice and
olive oil is an emulsion. You can make a vinegarette,
which is nice and tight, but this is an ancient recipe: mayonnaise, egg yolk, mustard, oil. You have to mix constantly because, see, otherwise it would break. You want it smooth,
thick but not too thick. I’m going to add a little
olive oil for flavor. So I mix both oil. But you see when you put the oil in there, it breaks and then you
have to emulsify it. A little more salt. What’s important to
really make it lighter, a little bit of lemon juice. So the acid really balances the oil, the heaviness of the yolk. Soon as you add an acid, vinegar or lemon, it change color a little
bit; it gets lighter. And now we’re gonna spice it up with a Thai chili sauce,
Sriracha, some Old Bay. This is classic American from the South. You know, you do a crayfish boil. Without reading I can smell
cayenne pepper, clove, allspice, star anise,
maybe a little cinnamon. Delicious.
[gentle music] [whisk rattles] There we are. So this is good on anything,
even on a burger I think. Mayonnaise done, now we’re
gonna prep the lobster. [upbeat music] I usually remove the claw like this, a little twist on the tail. [shell cracking] There we go. You can use
the scissors if you like. I’ll just push it out. Here we go. Then I’m gonna just cut it. Remove the intestine, yeah. And cut it in nice chunks, not too small. I like to use all the meat. I’m gonna remove the claw.
Tail meat is more meaty. This is a little more
rubbery. So I remove this. I like to remove the
other part of the claw. So when you do this, [shell cracks] I remove the claw. So the claw meat is a little firmer. This piece is almost like a rubber, but it’s delicious to eat. [shell cracking] The meat when it’s cooked
it just goes well out, cut it in big chunks as well. I like to use the scissors for this part. This is the knuckle meat. So just to open up, remove the meat. It’s a nice bite. You wanna use
everything from the lobster. There we go. Yeah, this
part is really delicious. You could use a hammer, you could use a something
to crack it a little more. Oh, we use probably 50, 60 lobsters a day. So this is, like, really a popular dish. Takes time, you know, to do all this but we cook it every day fresh. I like to just eat some of the legs. There’s not much meat in
there but a lot of juice. You can see that much meat, probably eight ounces from
a pound and half lobster. And we’re gonna make my salad and we are almost ready to eat it. [upbeat music] In the summer, I like to use tomato because it really brings
a nice burst of freshness. You know when you bite into
a lobster, which is meaty, and then you have a half a tomato, pow, it’s like very sunny, I call them Sungold. I cut them in half. And then the larger one,
I cut them into quarters. Some tarragon, not too small. You just wanna chisel the leaves ’cause you wanna taste it as well. Tarragon is a very unique herb, very anise flavor, lots of aroma. It makes your tongue tingle.
It’s a great herb to have. Here we are. Oof. I’m adding a little lemon zest. It’s just burst of summer, then the mayonnaise couple tablespoon. I’m gonna mix it up, a little
more. Gonna try the tomato. Wow. I need to put a little
more lemon juice in there. It’s so rich with the mayonnaise that you wanna make sure the flavors are bright
with the lemon, the spices, the tarragon, the sriracha,
the mustard, tomato. It’s magic. [smooth music] So we’re making here some potato chips, but they’re a little fancy. I call them potato gaufrettes. It’s just a great contrast to have potato chips with the lobster. I use a mandoline. So you
go one way, the other way. [potato scraping] Beautiful lacy gaufrettes. This is similar to waffle
fries, just a little thinner. It gets it very crunchy
because it’s a lattice. The oil goes through it and
then it get much crispier. So you have to wash them
to get the starch away, and then pat dry them and then we just fry
them in clarified butter. It’s a butter that you melt until you remove the buttermilk from it. So it’s pure fat, but it’s butter. You can use oil as well, but I think the flavor of the clarified
butter is very tasty. So when you do potato
gaufrettes like that, the little holes, the oil goes through and it really makes it a crisper chip. It dries faster too.
See, this one is ready. You can do a shallow fry like this. This is like a home technique. You can tell when they
start getting ready. The edge is crispy. You
don’t want it too dark. I think it’s important for a restaurant where you try to be as
artisanal as you can, from the mayonnaise to the chips, to the cook your own lobster. We could go open a bag of chips, you can buy the mayonnaise, you can buy the lobster meat. But I think people come to us for homemade, quality ingredients. But they smell like butter now, so it’s a different potatoes
than a regular chip, you know? Just drain them a little bit.
The smell of butter, my god. So we’re gonna season them with some salt. I like to use kosher salt
and then some malt vinegar. [gentle music] I’m using potato rolls,
Martin’s, very simple, classic. It has to be soft. You know, you could use brioche, but then it becomes very rich, so. I wanna feel like I’m somewhere in Maine. I think a little butter with the lobster. It makes a big difference. So I like to toast my buns. You could put it in the oven,
but it dries really fast. [butter sizzling] So I just want the edge to be crispy. The flavor of the butter inside the bun. Here we are. Very quick, simple, [sighs] magic. [upbeat music] So now it’s time to add our
lobster salad into the roll. So much goodness here. I can see the tomato, lobster and I always leave a
little bit for myself. Couple leaves of tarragon,
extra flavor. Some chips. Here we have a little bit of malt vinegar [spritzer hissing] for our chips. Voila.
[gentle music] Here we have a lobster
roll, tomato, tarragon on our gaufrettes potato chips. Mm, wow, succulent. Really good. Creamy lobster, tomato. I think what jumps out is
really the tarragon, sriracha. I see the mayonnaise with
the Old Bay, lemon, mustard. It’s probably not the
fanciest way to do lobster but the most delicious. Can’t go wrong. [gentle music continues] [electronic tones chiming]