Live Southern Rock Lobster

Southern rock lobster from the cold, clean water off South Australia, wild-caught and sold live. It goes from the tank to you still moving, which is the only way to know for certain that nothing has happened to the meat before you cook it.

Rock lobster meat is sweet and finely textured, and it sets firm and springy rather than soft. The reason live matters is chemical rather than sentimental: the moment a lobster dies, enzymes in the gut begin breaking the tail meat down, and the texture goes from firm to mushy faster than in almost any other seafood. Cooking it live skips that window entirely.

Why Choose It?

• South Australian water: cold, clean water off our own coast, wild-caught.
• Sold live: the tail meat never has the chance to soften before cooking.
• Sweet, firm flesh: fine-grained meat that cooks springy rather than woolly.
• Cooks any way you like: stir-fried, grilled, baked or steamed, all from the same animal.

Cooking Methods:

• Stir-fried: split, cut through the joints and stir-fry hard with ginger and spring onion.
• Grilled: split lengthways, brush the cut face with butter or garlic oil, and grill shell side down.
• Baked with cheese: split, top the tail meat and bake until the surface browns.
• Steamed: whole or split, briefly, served with nothing more than the juices from the shell.
• Raw, then the shell: serve the raw tail cold, then simmer the head and shell into a stock or porridge. If you are pregnant, elderly, very young or immunocompromised, cook it through instead.

The One Rule:
Stop cooking before you think you should. Rock lobster tail is firm meat that turns rubbery in the space of a minute, and the shell keeps cooking it after it leaves the heat.

Storage:
Keep it live at 0–4°C, cool, damp and covered — a tray under a wet cloth or damp newspaper in the fridge. Never store it in fresh water or sealed in an airtight bag, and cook it the day it arrives. Putting it in the freezer for twenty to thirty minutes before cooking sedates it, which makes it easier and more humane to handle. A lobster that dies before cooking breaks down quickly — do not hold it for later. Once cooked, cool quickly, refrigerate at 0–4°C and eat within two days.

Allergen:
Contains crustacean.

Live seafood loses a little moisture once it is out of the water, so weight can vary slightly on arrival. A South Australian lobster, still moving. Order now.