Name: Deviled Lobster
Ingredients: lobster; cayenne pepper; salt; butter; lemon juice; silver scallop-shells or clam-shells

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Deviled Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lobster by boiling it until cooked, then remove the meat from the shell.
Chop the lobster meat and mix it with melted butter, cayenne pepper, salt, and lemon juice to taste.
Fill the silver scallop-shells or clam-shells with the mixture.
Serve hot, using a fork to eat.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lobster + scalloptop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Butter + scalloptop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together160 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).