Food Lust People Love: Lobster Butter

Wednesday, June 4, 2025

Lobster Butter

Made with equal parts roe and butter, along with the creamy fat, if desired, this lobster butter is a deliciously rich savory spread for bread, crackers or toast.

A couple of years ago, at a huge book sale held in aid of Guide Dogs for the Blind – Jersey, I bought a little paperback called, The New Channel Island Cook Book. It is a wealth of knowledge (albeit a bit dated, published in 1989) about local produce with all sorts of recipes from the ubiquitous Jersey Royal potatoes to a fruit I’d never heard of called babaco which was reputedly imported from Ecuador and is similar to papaya.

Apparently, back then, they were hoping that as tomato farming was winding down due to competition from growers abroad, babaco production would pick up some of that slack. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way.

From what I can discern, babaco is still grown in the Channel Islands but there are only a few plants that still produce the fruit in Guernsey. In fact, maybe it was only ever grown there.

Another ingredient I was unfamiliar with is calabrese. Turns out this is a variety of what we call broccoli these days and the stalks were peeled and eaten! As they should be. I will never understand people who cut the broccoli stalks off and discard them. They can be tough on the outside but are delicious on the inside, either cooked or raw.

Quite a few of the recipes include seafood, understandable since it's an island cookbook, so when I lucked into a boiled lobster a while back, I started perusing its pages. I came across a very simple recipe for a part of the lobster I must confess I usually discard, the roe or eggs. What a waste! From now on, I’ll be making lobster butter.

Lobster Butter

The ingredient amounts will naturally depend on the size of your cooked lobster. This is where a kitchen scale comes in handy. Weigh the roe and any fat you will be using, then measure an equal weight in butter.

Ingredients

Roe from a cooked lobster or the roe and the fat

An equal quantity of butter

Method

Weigh the lobster portion of the ingredients. The roe weighed 48g and the fat weighed an additional 11g.

Add the roe and fat and an equal amount of cold butter (59g, in this case) to your mortar.

Mash together until smooth.

As you can see, I used the back of a spoon instead of my pestle. This takes a bit of time and persistence, but it's worth it! Isn't it a gorgeous color?

Serve with crackers, toast or slices of nice crusty bread. A cold glass of a dry white wine goes nicely!

Freeze any leftovers rolled up in a baggie or cling film to create a sliceable log for later.

Enjoy!

Welcome to the 12th edition of Alphabet Challenge 2025, brought to you by the letter L. Many thanks to Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm for organizing and creating the challenge. Check out all the L recipes below: