Name: Halibut and Lobster
Ingredients: 1½ pounds raw halibut, skin and bones removed; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 5 egg whites; 1 cup heavy cream; Butter and flour for greasing the mold; Lobster à la Newburg for serving

Why it works: Cream and lobster are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Halibut and Lobster

Ingredients

1½ pounds raw halibut, skin and bones removed
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')
5 egg whites
1 cup heavy cream
Butter and flour for greasing the mold
Lobster à la Newburg for serving

Directions

Make the mixture

Chop the halibut finely and season with cayenne and salt.
Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.
Fold in the whipped cream.
Stir in the fish mixture.

Mold and cook

Butter and flour a mold.
Pack the mixture into it.
Boil for 30 minutes.

Serve

Serve on a warm platter surrounded by lobster à la Newburg.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Cream + lobstertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,050 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Halibut: Provides the main body and flavor of the mousse-like mixture.
Egg whites: Whipped foam traps air, giving the set mixture a light, airy texture.
Heavy cream: Its fat adds richness and a moist, tender texture.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Whites that are under-whipped will not hold air, so the mixture stays dense. Overbeaten whites turn grainy and dry, and they deflate when folded in, which lowers the lightness the dish depends on.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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Halibut and Lobster