Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Lobster

A lobster stew made with lobster meat, white stock, spices, butter, flour, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lobster and cream 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 ↓

Stewed Lobster

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the meat and soft parts from the lobster and cut them into small pieces.

Make the stew

  1. In a saucepan, combine the lobster pieces, white stock, mace, cayenne, and salt.

  2. Dredge the lobster pieces in flour, then add the butter.

  3. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes.

  4. Stir in the cream.

  5. Bring to a boil.

  6. Let it simmer for 2 minutes before serving.

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. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lobster + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Flour and butter 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

Lobster meat and soft parts
Provides the main flavour and protein of the stew.
White stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the stew and cooks the lobster.
Flour
Coats the lobster and thickens the liquid into a light sauce.
Butter
Adds fat, richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the sauce's texture.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil after adding the cream. Cream in a flour-thickened liquid can separate, curdle or scorch if it boils hard or sits too long. Bringing it up gently and holding a short, gentle simmer keeps the sauce smooth while the flour sets its body.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, meat, pepper, flour, butter, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, meat, pepper, flour, butter, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

You might also like

Lobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipes