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Croustades De Homard

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Croustades De Homard

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare the lobster as for casseroles.

  2. Remove the tail from the shell and cut it into slices thicker than a coin.

  3. Heat the lobster slices in butter until lightly browned.

  4. Arrange the slices in a crown shape on a plate, alternating with fried croutons of the same size.

  5. In a saucepan, melt butter and mix with flour until well combined.

  6. Add water, season with salt and pepper, and bring to a boil.

  7. Add fish quenelles, oysters, and blanched mushrooms to the sauce.

  8. Thicken the sauce with one or two egg yolks and pour it in the center of the lobster crown.

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.

  1. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Lobster + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,034 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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