The quality of the audio in the first part of this video isn’t up to par! Of course what had to happen during my special lobster video is I dropped my sound recorder on the ground and lost all the audio files for everything leading up to the execution of the lobster. I had to use the crappy audio from the camera. It will forever bother me, but there was no way in hell I was redoing any of that. I hope you enjoy regardless!!!!
"don't eat what you can't kill" BRILLIANT!! Great video! Crazy props for stepping outside of your comfort zone and having true respect for the animal that dies to feed you! Love your vids!
Something to consider is that lobsters are exothermic and sensitive to very cold temperatures. Meaning if you put it in the freezer for like 20 minutes it will slow it’s metabolism and ‘put it to sleep’ so to speak. Making it even less aware when you plunge your knife into its central nervous system.
Lived in Alaska for seven years and did a lot of dip netting while there. Basically lived off salmon. The whole “plunging the knife into the brain” thing was my go to. Not a lobster obviously but it just generally strikes me as the most humane.
Not sure how I missed this video, but excellent job!!! I don’t blame you for missing the additions to the stockpot before killing the lobster. I was having feelings for you as you did that. The butter + flour is a roux, adding dairy makes it a béchamel which is one of the 5 mother sauces in French cooking. (Adding cheese makes it a mornay sauce) Would love to see you do a series on these 5 mother sauces.
Genuine question, if this was supposed to just be a standard béchamel, why didn't she just refer back to the recipe for that? And isn't this a weird way to do it? The "filming" the cream on? Her books are so weird sometimes 😅
@@SharpAssKnittingNeedles yes, that was a weird way to do it. That sauce breaking was 100% not his fault those were bad instructions. Also, cream back in the day had a higher fat content so she was probably able to get away with whatever that was. But with today's cream that was not a great way to do it.
I appreciated how concerned Jamie was with preventing prolonged suffering for the lobster. Im fortunate to not have been in a situation where I personally had to kill what I was going to eat. I doubt I would do it as decently clean as Jamie.
Man, Julia is not an easy teacher. Talk about having to plan your campaign of attack. And not Formatting the recipes in a user friendly way. Hats off to ya.
Check out historical cooking channels like Tasting History with Max Miller, 18th century cooking on Townsends, or Victorian cooking on English Heritage. Julia basically revolutionized the readability and repeatability of recipe books. Of course, as the first English-language chef to do things like try to put things in order, reference other recipes by page number, and include a list of ingredients with actual measurements, she wasn't up to today's standards, but still a massive step forward. (Disclaimer: Not quite actually the first English-language chef to do all that, but definitely early, and probably the first to do so comprehensively with French recipes. The only earlier book with those features you can probably get relatively easily today is Joy of Cooking.)
Julia wrote the cooking book when people traditionally cooked at home and going out or grabbing something from fast food didn't exist or was a treat when it did exist. Meaning, the terms and understanding she used was more common. We are a spoiled society where now you can even just walk into a grocery store and buy fresh food ready to be "steamed
Julia can be a challenge.....but, that’s why you’re doing it, right? The satisfying look when you tasted the lobster seemed to make it all worthwhile. I love the Julia series!
@@shirowoh5850 That's not why it breaks at high heat. Butter contains an emulsifying protein called casein, the same one that allows milk and cream to remain mixed at room temperature. At high enough temperatures (I believe it was uh... above 60ºC? I could google it but I don't want to) casein denaturalizes and can no longer emulsify water and fat, causing the cream to rise and sauces to break. Pretty cool IMO but I'm a huge nerd.
Watching this older video and comparing it to your newer ones. Glad to see you are still skipping parts of or modifying the recipes and then looking bewildered at what could have possibly gone wrong.
Regarding whether lobsters feel pain -- Most scientists agree that lobsters feel pain based on the following criteria: possessing a peripheral nervous system with appropriate receptors, reaction to opioids, guarding injuries, learning to avoid negative stimuli, and electing to avoid negative stimuli over meeting other needs. Putting lobsters on ice or boiling them alive is illegal in some locations, including Switzerland, New Zealand, and the Italian city of Reggio Emilia. The most humane way to kill a lobster is by electrocution using a device called CrustaStun.
It's pretty impressive how many times I'm watching these videos and the process has been so fraught that I'm like "there's no way this is going to turn out okay" and then you pull it out of the oven and the final product somehow looks beautiful. I don't know how you do it, but it's definitely encouraging me not to give up when one thing goes wrong! All it takes is some melted cheese and good plating and suddenly- gourmet perfection.
There is no other cooking chanel like yours 😄 Thank you for encouraging me and others to play more freely in the kitchen. Mistakes are allowed.. and without them it just wouldnt be as fun! 🤭 😊👍
I've learned that Julia has very roundabout ways of doing things watching this series. It's fun seeing you improve and learn to interpret these recipes
One of the best videos Jamie has ever done. He channels what everyone thinks when they cook a lobster for the first time. I'm the same way doing mussels.
@@mygirldarby humane is understanding where your food is coming from, treating it well, and killing it in the most painless way possible. It's about respect. All creatures need to eat, and humans are omnivores. We are intelligent enough to treat our food with respect when we decide we're hungry. Also, if you don't like something, good for you. Don't harass, cry, whine, or bitch to others to force them to confirm themselves to your personal morals and values. You can be a vegan or whatever you please. Don't force it down people's throats just cuz you're butthurt and don't understand things/want everyone to follow your moral rules.
@@srkh8966 totally agree. I always find vegans who can’t find compassion for humans an odd mix. I’ve gone vegan a few times, but my health deteriorated. I don’t think I could kill my own food, so I have respect for those who can do so in a respectful way. He even thanked the lobster for its service. Aside from NOT cooking the lobster not sure what more Jamie could have done. He did an amazing job of being a human omnivore.
That looked so good when it was finished! Funny story- the last time I bought live lobsters to cook at home,I put them in the boiling water,and didn't quite cover them with the lid fast enough.They almost flipped right back out of the pan onto the stove!😅Now when I buy lobsters, I have the store steam them for me.
When you start to respect the ingredients, and how every one of them is contributing to the layers of flavors You will have greater success,and less stress
Just found your channel. And I bloody love it, haha! The strife. The determination! Everything about it is both educational and, not least, very funny and entertaining. When the lobster is done, put it in iced water or it will continue cooking. Keep up the good work!
It really helps if, before tackling a new recipe (especially one of Julia's) you read through it first so you have a basic idea where you are going with it.
Me too. I couldn't watch this and I unsubscribed. I'm assuming he killed this poor thing to make a disgusting dinner and get some views. I can't support this behavior.
@@mygirldarby I don't think it turned out disgusting. It looked like he enjoyed it. I think a man buying and killing a fish isn't that different than a hawk catching a fish. It just grosses me out!
@@mygirldarby if you didn’t watch this then it isn’t fair to have an opinion about his motivations. He was very respectful to the sacrifice of the animal. He is a very sincere soul working his way through the cookbook. And his statement that you shouldn’t eat what you won’t kill shows a lot of integrity and moral consistency. Making others kill for you is degrading to those other humans. Personally, my health deteriorates when I go vegan for more than a month, so I need to listen to my body. I try to at least choose humanely raised meat sources. We are all on this planet just doing the best we can. Not all animals are vegetarian. Do you judge them too?
@@mygirldarbyI feel this is kind of disingenuous because if you've watched other videos of his than most of the recipes include meat of some sort. So all of those animals were also killed. This is just the first one where he had to do the deed himself, but either way these animals are dying and they're being used for food. Which is part of the food chain which is natural.
I'm so glad you went for the humane method. My mum is a huge crab lover, although crab doesn't like her...for years she thought it was the fact she was eating tinned stuff instead of fresh. A family friend brought us a fresh crab for her to try, they used the live crab into boiling water method, without the mercy you showed Claude there the noises that came from that pot...I didn't eat crab for the next 15 years...also turns out the fresher it is the more it disagrees with mum...
Former chef here- your sauce “broke” from heating it too aggressively after adding your fat (heavy cream). You did the right thing by lowering the heat and slowly adding in more cream to emulsify it. You probably needed some flour in there too- you could add some to a sieve, dip it in the sauce, and whisk it until the flour binds. Sauces are more art than science- recipes will give guidelines but they always need to be adjusted. You just need to know WHAT to adjust depending on what you see.
It’s interesting to look at an older video like this and see how your cooking has developed. When you were psyching yourself up to kill the lobster I had flashbacks to a few years ago when I had to kill a couple of roosters. It was very traumatic.
Never had lobster but do say that the end results did look delicious. The sacrifice part was pretty funny after a long day at work it was needed. You give cooking a whole new meaning and how it really happens in kitchens.
When a sauce breaks it is actually because it has too much fat content. The fix is always to continue to stir vigorously while adding more liquid (not more fat). I'm guessing yours quasi-recovered because the cream added a lot more volume to the mix
You want to sauteé the lobster meat in Armañac and white (or golden) truffles. You would have extracted that meat with pincers and conserved the shell (carapace) and claws whole, later to be filled with the finished meat and the whole thing finally sauced, allowing for an elegant presentation.
Lobsters absolutely do feel pain, as do all crustaceans. They are animals, ofc they have pain stimulus, how eslse would they know when they are harmed or in danger. And studies have shown they learn based on pain stimulus from unpleasant or painful experiences and don't repeat them. They also soothe themselves by rubbing injured areas or areas exposed to painful chemicals. They also naturally try to escape stressful situations and seek pleasurable situation and respond to shock therapy. So they absolutely feel pain and in the way we do too. Frankly i doubt there's any animal that doesn't
Good on you for cleanly dispatching the lobster before you put it in the pot, lobster are particularly uncomfortable to cook because they have some very stubborn synapses that just keep firing even after they are very dead so they can twitch around like they are still alive even after death which can be extremely uncomfortable for a lot of people. Especially because we are starting to have some studies that are very inconclusive on lobsters experiencing pain they are starting to think that while they may not experience it the same way we do they do experience it so dispatching them with a knife like this is the kindest thing you can do
Being a landlocked denizen of the midwest, I never acquired a taste for lobster. I had it once. That was plenty. Watching him work on that lobster was an education. Lobsters are like bugs in that they have an exoskeleton. And I have heard that bugs don't feel pain. So maybe lobsters don"t feel pain either. On the other hand, people used to say that about animals too.
I think they say that to make us not feel so bad about boiling them alive. I’m in the quick knife to the brain camp myself. That way it’s quick and relatively pain free. Just incase they do feel pain.
They absolutely feel pain. Not because they have an exoskeleton, but because their brains register feelings, even though they are more primitive than mammalian brains. In fact, research points to them feeling pain when cut in half much worse than a mammal would, since their nervous systems don't have the ability to go into shock due to prolonged or intense trauma. Meaning if you cut a lobster in half it will feel that for all 60 or so minutes it takes for the lobster to finally die, rather than going into shock after a few minutes at most like we would.
Please do not freeze a lobster multiple studies have shown that it is not a humane way to dispatch them they will be in pain before they are forced into a hibernation like state it is not considered a humane way of killing them
You might have learned at this point but just in case. What you made by cooking off flour with butter is called a "roux" Very commonly used to thicken sauces or base for Béchamel Sauce ( just add milk & season )
I think he may have shorted his flour amt as well, recipe said more than the 1 1/2 tbsp he used, not enough starch to bind the butter. I make an excellent white sauce but hollandaise still evades me.
so, butter and flour is the base of a roux. this is the basis of 4 of the 5 french mother sauces. A light or blonde roux is used to make bechemel (or veloute in this recipe), dark rouxs are cooked longer to "toast" the flour and are part of sauces like espagnole. (this takes a while, and goes from dark to burnt very quickly) You're cooking the flour in the butter to remove the "raw" flour flavor, then adding a stock or cream/milk to it to make your sauce. when the sauce breaks like that, it needs more liquid and a lower heat. You probably should have had another cup of liquid from the lobster (or a lobster broth) to make the amount of sauce this recipe calls for.
You worrying about subbing out ingredients is all good man I usually have a dish in mind when I’m cooking and how it’s made and just fill in gaps with things I know work etc it just takes time you did great winging it!
Putting the ocean bug in the freezer for like 10min slows down its nervous system enough that being a little unsteady when killing it won't make it suffer more, helps make it an easier process
I'm exhausted just having watched you make that dish. lols Happy you enjoyed the fruits of your labor! Nothing's worse than putting in the effort and the end result just being meh. Great job!
Truly enjoyed your cooking mess!!!...LMAO....you were great there, extra points for getting to the end. I was just hoping after all, you didn't burn it in the oven!...lol...thanks for acting out a good recipe!:)
Years ago I bought a live lobster and just about gave myself a heart attack attempting to cook it. Now my local grocery stores that sell live lobsters will steam them for you to take home (I'm in S. Ontario).
Rule #1 on recipes: ALWAYS read the recipe from start to finish BEFORE you begin. There may be steps you have to prepare a day ahead, or it may include foods from another recipe.
You only need an inch of water to steam it. Put the lobsters in while the water is cool and put the lid on , high heat to a boil 👍🏼 about 5 minutes until it’s red then take off the heat..this way it won’t be chewy
