How was your Christmas break? Obiter spent much of it eating - and was especially pleased to come across a recipe for the dish ‘Dublin lawyer’. This is a modest preparation of lobster, butter, whiskey - definitely with an e - and cream. It’s (relatively) simple to make.
First, cook a lobster in a large pot of boiling water; about 10 minutes per 500g. Once cooked, let it cool, before splitting down the middle and extracting the meat (keep the shells to serve). Melt 50g of butter in a pan. Add the lobster meat and a good slug of warmed whiskey, to which you then set fire.
Pour in cream (perhaps with a little mustard) when the flames have ‘abated’, season with salt and pepper and reduce a little. Put the mixture in the shell halves, and grill ’til it bubbles. Serve with good bread and, let’s be honest, probably more whiskey.
But why is this dish named for the legal profession? Opinion is divided, but many go for a variation on the following: ‘Though no one’s absolutely sure where Dublin lawyer got its name, locals still insist that it’s probably because Dublin lawyers had a reputation for being rich and having a lot of whiskey in them.’
There are variations on the recipe. To the canon Obiter would like to add our own recipe for ‘Legal aid lawyer’. The preparation is as above, but without the lobster. Or butter, cream and mustard. Cheers.
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