Dublin Lawyer is an Irish dish of lobster cooked in a cream and whiskey sauce.
A standard recipe feeds two people.
To make it, you take chunked lobster meat and lobster coral, and briefly sautée them in garlic and butter. You then flambée the pieces with whiskey, pour cream into the pan, and heat it. You serve it with the pan sauce.
Variations include adding some lemon juice, and / or dried mustard to the sauce.
Oftentimes, it is served with the pan sauce in a half shell of the cleaned-out lobster. If you are serving in the lobster half-shell, scald the shell first in hot boiling water, then fill with the lobster mixture, and pop under a grill (aka broiler in North America) for 2 to 3 minutes until bubbling.
Some people who don’t like looking at a lobster shell suggest serving the mixture instead on top a bed of rice.
Serving accompaniment suggestions typically include plain boiled potatoes, steamed green beans, leafy salad, a lemon wedge.
Cooking Tips
1 fresh lobster (weighing about 2 1/2 pounds / 1.1 kg)
1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) butter
1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) whisky
1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) heavy cream
salt and pepper
1 teaspoon lemon juice (optional)
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard (optional)
Halve the lobster down the centre. Remove all meat from tail, claws, etc. Chop the meat into chunks.
Briefly plunge the two shell halves into boiling water; set aside.
Heat butter in a frying pan. Add the lobster chunks. Stir until just heated through, but not coloured. Don’t let the butter brown.
Pour the whisky (perhaps zapped for 60 seconds first in the microwave to heat it) over the mixture in the pan, and set alight. Stir in the cream, mix. Season with salt and pepper. Optionally, add some lemon juice and dry mustard powder.
Place the two lobster half-shells on a baking sheet, cavity side up. Divide lobster mixture between them. Pop under a broiler (aka grill in the UK) for 2 to 3 minutes until sauce is bubbling. Send to the table.
Literature & Lore
The recipe’s name is an odd one. Of course, because it is a rich dish, with whiskey, there are the usual jokes about similarities with lawyers. It’s also claimed at times to be hundreds of years old. The problem with all this, of course, is that lobster was seen as a food for poor folk. It’s only in recent times that it became expensive.