Name: Escaloped Lobster
Ingredients: 1 large lobster, meat chopped; cream sauce (for boiled fish, without parsley); fine bread crumbs; butter; salt; pepper; hot water

Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Escaloped Lobster

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Chop the meat of one large lobster and place it in a baking dish.

Assemble and bake

Pour over a cream sauce made for boiled fish, omitting the parsley.
Sprinkle the top with fine bread crumbs and add bits of butter.
Bake for 30 minutes until heated through and golden.

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.

Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,095 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,050 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster: Provides the main protein and sweet, delicate flavour of the dish.
Cream sauce: Keeps the lobster moist and binds the dish with a rich, creamy texture.
Fine bread crumbs: Form a crisp, golden topping when baked.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the topping brown in the oven.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, meat, cream, sauce, fish, bread, butter):

Capersfits better
Nutmegfits better
Tarragonfits about as well
Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, meat, cream, sauce, fish, bread, butter. 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.