The first Connecticut-Style Butter Lobster Roll I ever ate was handed to me on a paper plate on the deck of a lobster boat in Milford harbor. The boat was called the Margaret Anne. The captain was a man named Eddie Petrillo, and he had no patience for ceremony.
Eddie had pulled his last trap that morning at five. By eleven he was clarifying butter on a single propane burner clamped to a folding table, laughing at me for trying to take notes on a notepad that already had salt water in it.
How I Met a Milford Lobsterman in the First Place
I had booked a half day on Eddie’s boat through a tiny shoreline tourism site, mostly because I wanted to see traps come up. I had flown in from the West Coast the night before. I had never watched anyone work a pot hauler.
Eddie was a third-generation lobsterman, late fifties, navy windbreaker, the slow voice of someone who does not waste sentences. He told me his grandfather used to drink coffee at Perry’s Restaurant in Milford back in the 1950s. That is the place credited with inventing the lobster roll in 1929. The grandfather part is just Eddie.
We swapped numbers when I left. He texts me a picture every May when the soft-shells come in.
What a Connecticut-Style Butter Lobster Roll Actually Is
Here is the part most people get wrong. The lobster roll did not come out of Maine. It came out of Connecticut, specifically Harry Perry’s place on the Milford shoreline, where a regular customer asked for lobster in a sandwich he could eat in one hand.
The white bread Perry first tried fell apart, so he leaned on French’s Bakery up in Bridgeport to bake him a sturdier roll with flat sides he could griddle in butter. That is the top-split bun we now call New England-style.
No mayo. No celery. No onion. No lettuce hiding under the meat to bulk it out. Warm, not hot. Big bite-sized pieces of claw, knuckle, and tail. Drawn butter, a squeeze of lemon, flaky salt. That is the whole thing.
Maine lobster roll fans will tell you their cold mayo version is the original. It is not. It is the variant that came later.
What I Used
- 2 live Maine lobsters, around a pound and a quarter each, hard-shell
- Kosher salt for the boiling water, three big tablespoons
- 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
- 4 top-split New England-style hot dog buns, the flat-sided kind
- Fresh lemon juice, about two teaspoons, and wedges for the plate
- Flaky sea salt
- Chives, thinly sliced, optional but pretty
Cooking It in My Own Kitchen, Eight Months Later
I made this on a Saturday afternoon in November, which is wildly out of season, because I had been thinking about Eddie’s boat for weeks and I could not wait until June. My live lobsters came from Santa Monica Seafood. They are flown in straight out of Maine, not Long Island Sound. Eddie would forgive me.
The kitchen smelled like seaweed inside of three minutes. I had Townes Van Zandt’s Live at the Old Quarter playing through the speaker on top of the fridge, and a cold Narragansett tallboy on the counter that a friend had brought back for me. Salted Marcona almonds in a small bowl. The whole point of making this dish at home is that the wait between the boil and the assembly becomes its own little event. You stand around. You drink. You poke at the lobsters with tongs. It is good.
Eight to nine minutes is all the boil needs for 1.25-pound lobsters. Then I let them cool on a sheet tray for ten minutes without ice. Ice is for the Maine version. We want this meat warm.
Clarifying the Butter, Picking the Meat
This is the part where I usually mess something up. The first time I made this, I tried to skip the clarifying step and just melted whole butter into the pan with the lobster. The roll was greasy. Not silky. Greasy. The milk solids in whole butter coat the meat in a way that mutes the sweetness. Clarify the butter. It takes four minutes and you only need a small saucepan and a spoon.
Pick the lobster while the butter sits. Twist the claws and knuckles off, crack with the back of a heavy knife or proper crackers, pull each claw out as one piece if you can. Slit the underside of the tail with kitchen shears, lift the meat out in one log, and trim the dark vein. Chop everything to roughly three-quarter-inch chunks. Big. Bigger than you think. Shredding it is a Maine move.
I have a cast iron skillet I bought at a yard sale in Highland Park for nine dollars. It has a small rust scar on the handle. It is the only thing I use to toast the buns. Smear the flat outer sides with soft butter, lay them down, do not move them for ninety seconds. Then flip.
The Assembly, and Why the Lemon Matters
Warm the clarified butter back over the lowest heat you have. Add the lobster chunks and the two teaspoons of lemon juice. Toss gently for two or three minutes, until the meat is glossy and the butter has gone slightly pink at the edges from the lobster juices. Do not let it simmer. Simmering toughens the meat, fast.
The lemon is non-negotiable in my kitchen. Eddie did not use any on the boat. I know. But out here in California, eight months removed from the actual Long Island Sound, the lemon is what wakes the dish back up.
Pile a heaping quarter of the meat into each bun, letting it mound above the bread the way a good cone of soft serve does. Spoon the extra butter out of the pan over the top. Scatter chives if you feel pretty about it. Flaky salt. Lemon wedge on the plate. Eat standing up at the counter, the way it deserves.
Eddie sent me a photo last May of his first soft-shell of the season, sitting on a piece of newspaper on the deck of the Margaret Anne. The caption said, your turn. I will fly back one of these summers and watch him pull traps again, and until then this is the closest I get.
Connecticut-Style Butter Lobster Roll
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Fill a large stockpot with about 6 quarts of water and add the 3 tablespoons of kosher salt. Bring to a hard rolling boil over high heat.
- Plunge the two live lobsters into the boiling water head-first. Cover the pot, return to a boil, and cook for 8 to 9 minutes for 1.25-pound lobsters, until the shells are bright red and the antennae pull out easily.
- Lift the lobsters out with tongs and transfer to a rimmed tray to cool for 10 minutes, just until you can handle them. Do not ice-bath them — you want the meat warm, not cold.
- Twist off the claws, knuckles, and tail. Crack the claws with a lobster cracker and pull the meat out in one piece. Use kitchen shears to slit the underside of the tail and remove the meat in one log; pick the knuckles clean with the tip of the shears.
- Cut the tail meat lengthwise to remove the dark vein, then chop all the meat into large bite-sized chunks, roughly three-quarters of an inch. You should have about 12 ounces of picked meat. Set aside.
- In a small saucepan over low heat, melt 10 tablespoons of the butter without stirring. Once fully melted, skim the white foam off the top with a spoon and gently pour the clear golden liquid into a bowl, leaving the milky solids behind. This is your drawn butter.
- Heat a cast iron griddle or skillet over medium heat. Spread the remaining 2 tablespoons of soft butter onto the flat outer sides of each top-split bun. Place the buns on the griddle, buttered side down, and toast for 1 to 2 minutes per side until deeply golden and crisp. Stand them upright on a plate.
- Return the drawn butter to low heat. Add the lobster chunks and the 2 teaspoons of lemon juice. Gently toss with a spoon for 2 to 3 minutes, just until the meat is glossy and warmed through. Do not let it simmer or the lobster will toughen.
- Sprinkle the flaky sea salt over the lobster and give one final gentle toss.
- Open each toasted bun and pile in a heaping quarter of the warm buttered lobster, letting the meat mound above the bread. Spoon any extra butter from the pan over the top.
- Scatter the sliced chives across the rolls if using, set a lemon wedge alongside, and serve immediately while the butter is still glistening.